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Blues are on to game 2 vs the Wild

October 13, 2016, 5:35 PM ET [26 Comments]
Jason Millen
St Louis Blues Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT


After the Blues rather impressive win last night 5-2, the Blues head right back to it with their home opener against the Minnesota Wild. It will be a reunion of sorts with Chris Stewart suiting up for the Wild and Mike Yeo coaching against his former club.

Last year the Blues went 3-2 against the Wild, winning one of the games in overtime.
Interestingly, Jake Allen will get the start tonight after playing last night, shredding any thoughts or concerns related to a lingering injury.

Allen has been a little above his career averages against Minnesota, posting a 2.28 GAA and a 91.9% save percentage.

The Blues will make one forward and one defensive lineup change tonight bringing in Carl Gunnarsson for Robert Bortuzzo (as expected) and Maguns Paajarvi for Dmitri Jaskin. I expect the following lines:

Fabbri – Stastny – Steen
Perron – Lehtera- Tarasenko
Paajarvi-Berglund-Yakupov
Upshall-Brodziak-Reaves
Bouwmeester-Pietrangelo
Gunnarsson-Shattenkirk
Edmundson-Parayko

I believe the Wild’s lineup will be as follows:

Zach Parise-Eric Staal-Charlie Coyle
Mikael Granlund-Mikko Koivu-Jason Pominville
Nino Niederreiter-Erik Haula-Chris Stewart
Jason Zucker-Zac Dalpe-Teemu Pulkkinen
Ryan Suter-Jared Spurgeon
Marco Scandella-Matt Dumba
Mike Reilly-Jonas Brodin
Devan Dubnyk

I haven’t gotten to watch the game last night but I did note the following from the box score:
- Three Blues with three points each – Tarasenko, Stastny and Shattenkirk
- Parayko with the 2nd most shots in the game with four
- Blues went 3 for 5 on the power play
- Blues outshot the Hawks 34-19
- Fabbri had no shots and was under 14 minutes of TOI, behind Perron and Berglund
- The Hawks PAK line had no points and each were -2 (empty net goals perhaps)
- Bortuzzo had the lowes TOI of all defensemen at just over 13 minutes
- Allen had a sub 90% save percentage

It’s a great day for hockey.

ETA - Fellow Hockeybuzz bloggers Nashville Predator's Paul McCann, Winnipeg Jet's Peter Tessier and Minnesota Wild's Dan Wallace have generously agreed to a friendly charity wager. We were hoping to do the whole division but don't have it fully represented yet. The blogger whose team finishes the highest the standings at the end of the year gets to pick a charity to whom the others donate in their name.
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