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On Thursday night, the Blues played their fifth consecutive quality road game (3rd of this trip), defeating the San Jose Sharks 4-1. The win made the Blues 4-1 in their last five road games with the only loss coming Wednesday night, 2-1, against the Ducks, a game in which most felt they outplayed the Ducks.
The Blues got goals from Scottie Upshall, Zach Sanford (his first as a Blues while showing off good hands), and Vladimir Tarasenko before Tarasenko added an empty net goal. The Blues took the game to the Sharks even though they had played the night before. They outshot the Sharks almost 2:1 and killed two penalties. Carter Hutton played well stopping 19 of 20 shots.
The road trip heads a bit east today with the Blues taking on the Coyotes at 8pm. Many pundits and some Blues fans seem to think the next few games are easy wins. A recent look at the Coyotes schedule suggests otherwise. The Coyotes have earned points in 5 straight games going 3-0-2. They are 4-1-2 in their last 7 games with each loss decided by one goal.
Even with their strong recent play, the Coyotes still have the 2nd fewest points in the NHL.
They have given up the 3rd most goals per game while scoring the 4th fewest goals per game. Their power play and penalty kills are both 4th worst in the league and they give up the 2nd most shots per game.
The Coyotes are led by Radim Vrbata who has 17 goals and 51 points and Oliver Ekman-Larsson who has 34 points in 70 games. Max Domi has 31 points in 47 games.
The Blues are not holding a skate today so the lineup will be a bit of a guess as will the starting goalie. I expect the lineup to be as follows:
Schwartz – Stastny – Tarasenko
Steen – Berglund - Perron
Sanford – Barbashev – Paajarvi
Upshall – Brodziak – Reaves
Bouwmeester – Pietrangelo
Edmundson - Parayko
Gunnarsson – Bortuzzo
Allen
How easy is the Blues remaining schedule? If you take the average points earned against by the Blues remaining opponents, the Blues would project to 95 points. Essentially, this approach considers the average points that all teams earned against the remaining opponents. Of course, the Blues are trying to treat every game the same.
Coach Mike Yeo commented that “it would be a huge mistake on our part to say we’ve gotten through the tough part of the schedule”. Magnus Paajarvi added that we’ve got 12 more games and nothing can be taken for granted”. Jay Bouwmeested echoed the same sentiment saying “I don’t think you can really focus on who you’re playing, but it’s about taking care of your own business. When it comes down to it, there are no bad teams anymore. Anybody can beat anybody.” Hopefully the Blues will walk their talk tonight and handle business.
Brian Elliott side note - He stopped 21 of 22 last night, earning his 10th win in a row. Both Allen and Elliott are climbing the goalie charts in March.
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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