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The Blues headed out to California after their uninspired and disappointing loss to the Bruins on Tuesday. The Blues hope their consistently inconsistent pattern holds true tonight as they have been alternating wins and losses for the last 8 games. This will be their first road game in three weeks. In December, the Blues were 2-4 on the road.
For the Kings, the Blues are the hump game of a seven day homestand that has seen the Kings drop 2 of their first 3, struggling in their own zone while giving up over 4 goals a game in that span. Since December 1st, the Kings are 3-3-1 at home.
Much like the Blues, the Kings have been struggling in the net, 7th worst in save percentage at 90.4%. Of course, part of this is due to Jonathan Quick only playing one game so far this season but Peter Budaj has filled in admirably with a 91.6% in 33 games. Jeff Zatkoff struggled in his 11 games, posting an 88.6% save percentage. Thankfully the Kings lead the league in shots against per game at only 25.8. The Kings save percentage is actually worse at home, a league worst 88.7%, not much better than the Blues league worst road save percentage of 87%.
Some other Kings statistics of note are that their offense has the 7th worst shooting percentage in the NHL at 8.1% and that they have the 4th best home power play.
Jeff Carter is having a very strong season for the Kings, posting 22 goals and 37 points in 41 games including 7 game winning goals. The Kings 2nd and 3rd leading point producers are defenseman. Alec Martinez has 23 points in 41 games while Drew Doughty has 22 points in the same.
The Kings have a number of historical Blues killers. Marian Gaborik has accumulated 41 points in only 38 games while Anze Kopitar has 40 in 37 games. Jeff Carter has 3 game winning goals in only 21 games. Jake Muzzin has scored 12% of his career goals against the Blues while those games account for only 3% of his games played.
It appears that coach Ken Hitchock will stick with Jake Allen tonight after refusing to announce his starter last night. Hitchcock said after the game Tuesday that Allen’s “not stopping the puck” and “having a tough go of it”. He further added that “I don’t think anybody anticipated this” and that “it is what it is”.
Unfortunately, the Blues have gotten poor goaltending this season. Sure the defensive zone coverages have struggled at times but the truth is the goaltending has been weak. If you don’t believe me or their league worst save percentage, look at @DTMAboutHeart’s analysis that can be found here https://twitter.com/DTMAboutHeart/status/819250722470559754
Note that Jake Allen is 34th on the list (which includes a few backups) in goals saved above expectation, just trailing Brian Elliott and only above number one goalies Steve Mason and Semyon Varlamov.
You can also look at his chart versus xsave% which will show Allen only a millimeter better, now ahead of Elliott by a little bit but behind almost everyone else still. Allen is still young but I think at least some Blues fans are getting concerned about this season’s trend. He has historically been strong against the Kings, posting a 1.35 goals against average and a 95.2% save percentage.
The Blues hope that Vladimir Tarasenko keeps his point a game pace versus the Kings (12 points in 12 games) and that Paul Stasnty builds on his 31 points in 34 games. Patrik Berglund will be looking to continue his hot streak, building on his last 11 games where he has 7 goals.
The lines should start out like this with a substantial shakeup on defense:
Steen – Stastny – Yakupov
Fabbri – Lehtera - Tarasenko -
Schwartz – Berglund – Perron
Upshall – Brodziak – Reaves
Pietrangelo - Parayko
Bouwmeester – Shattenkirk
Edmundson – Bortuzzo
Allen
No time for Jammer’s nuggets today.
It’s a great day for hockey.
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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