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On Friday night, the Blues played yet another fairly well played road game only to lose to a Central division opponent. The Blues outshot the Stars 29 to 16, losing the game as a result of a bad luck power play goal after a poor Colton Paryako penalty and a misplayed passing play in their own end before more evidence of Jake Allen’s struggles in picking up shots from the point when bodies are around him.
Parayko went off for tripping only a couple of minutes into the 2nd period. On the ensuing power play, Mattias Janmark sent a shot wide of the net that Carl Gunnarsson’s leg redirected past Allen. Allen had no chance.
Midway through the third period, Alex Pietrangelo makes an uncharacteristically poor play, making a terrible attempt at a pass to Jay Bouwmeester. Bouwmeester then throws the puck to the line to a covered Patrik Berglund who makes a poor play on the puck battle. Watch the sequence here.
The Blues are unable to regain possession and clear the zone and Stephen Johns eventually fires the puck past Allen from the right point, a shot that Allen has to stop at this point in the game. Allen continues to seem to struggle on point shots, especially if there is any traffic near him. Watch it here.
The Blues would add a late, extra attacker, power play goal from Brayden Schenn with 1:14 left. Overall the Blues outshot the Stars 29 to 16 and were up 20 to 10 after 2 periods. They had more hits and fewer giveaways.
Unfortunately, the Blues lost Robert Bortuzzo early in the 3rd period with an injury. It sounds like he will not be able to go tonight against the Sharks.
The Sharks have won 2 in a row and gone 6-3-1 in their last 10 games. They are a very respectable 15-10-5 on the road and are 3-1-1 in their last 5 road games. The Sharks are 16th in scoring but are 8th in goal prevention. Their special teams have been very good as the lead the league in penalty killing and are ranked 4th on the power play.
Brent Burns leads the Sharks in points with 50 while Logan Couture leads them in goals with 23. Joe Thornton is out with a right knee injury. Mikkel Boedker has been on fire with 4 goals and 5 points in his last 3 games. Thomas Hertl has the highest average points per game against the Blues with 7 points in 11 games.
It looks like Martin Jones will get the start in net for the Sharks tonight. He has a 2.38 career goals against average and a 90.9% save percentage versus the Blues.
Speaking of goaltenders, Carter Hutton will get the call for the Blues. Hutton has an insane 96.8% save percentage and 0.98 goals against average against the Sharks.
Other Blues who have had success against the Sharks include Jaden Schwartz who has 13 points in only 12 games, Alex Pietrangelo who has 18 point in 22 games and Vladimir Tarasenko who has 10 point in 13 games. Schenn has struggled in his nine games against the Sharks, only registering one point.
The Blues recalled Samuel Blais who will be in the lineup along with Oskar Lundqvist as Vladimir Sobotka is out sick. The lines should start like this:
Forwards
Alexander Steen - Paul Stastny – Vladimir Tarasenko
Jaden Schwartz - Brayden Schenn – Samuel Blais
Ivan Barbashev – Kyle Brodziak – Patrik Berglund
Scottie Upshall – Oskar Sundqvist – Dmitrij Jaskin
Defense
Carl Gunnarsson - Alex Pietrangelo
Jay Bouwmeester - Colton Parayko
Chris Butler -Vince Dunn
Goalie
Carter Hutton
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 will donate in their name.
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