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Blues fans must like what they are seeing in the NHL over the last week or so with the Blues helping themselves with victories and other teams taking points away from Western conference teams that sit above the Blues in the standings.
In the last few days, the Leafs rallied from two goals down to defeat the Stars in a shootout and also lost to the Canadiens and Penguins in regulation. Tthe Coyotes beat the Kings in a shootout, the Islanders beat the Flames, the Oilers beat the Wild, and the Capitals beat the Sharks and that is just since last Saturday.
The Blues continued to inch closer to the playoffs with a4-2 win over the Ducks on Monday night. Robert Bortuzzo opened the scoring again. This time on a smooth passing play by Brayden Schenn and Alex Pietrangelo. Bortuzzo starts the play by chipping the puck out of the zone from near the goal line, angling the puck off the boards to Schenn in the neutral zone. It’s a great play showing how defensemen sometimes throw the puck off the wall and into space, either safe space or space where a teammate can retrieve the puck. From there, Bortuzzo becomes part of the third wave into the zone and scores on a shot that you would assume a pure goal scorer would make. Watch it here:
The Blues extended the lead to 2 just 3 minutes into the 2nd period when Ivan Barbashev scored in his 2nd consecutive game. On the play, an effective forecheck and wall play by Chris Thorburn is key to starting the sequence that leads to the goal but Barbashev’s nose for the net is the real key to the goal. Watch it
here.
Unfortunately, as has been all too often the case this season, the Ducks answered back quickly, just over a minute later on a goal from Corey Perry. On the play, Pietrangelo might get caught a bit distracted by pleading for a penalty on Perry as Perry escapes to the far corner for the easy goal on a great pass from Ryan Getzlaf. The play is a good reminder to play to the whistle and to work to win regardless of officiating. Watch the play
here.
The Blues would push the lead back to 2 with just over 3 minutes left in the period on a goal from Vladimir Sobotka. Barbashev and Jordan Schmaltz use strong puck movement to get Sobotka the puck at the far post but this is a play John Gibson usually is able to thwart and likely wants to have back. Watch it
here.
The Ducks again cut the lead to 1 a little over 6 minutes into the third period. Carl Gunnarsson provides poor gap management and closure on Chris Kelley while Jordan Schmaltz tries to tie up Derek Grant. Both combine for a screen on Jake Allen while Grant deflects the puck in to the net. Allen has no chance on the play. Watch it
here.
About 5 minutes later, the Blues go back up by 2 on a goal from Patrik Berglund. Cam Fowler makes a lazy, poor cross ice pass to Kevin Bieksa as he is hoping to change. Bieksa is in poor position because of the pass and has no real passing options. Instead of reversing it off the wall and out of the zone, he backhands the puck to a pressured Fowler. Fowler misses the puck, allowing Kyle Brodziak to feed the puck to Berglund in the slot for the goal. Watch it
here.
With this victory and the other games around the league, tonight’s game against the Avalanche is even more critical to the Blues. With a win tonight, the Blues would only be 1 point behind the Avalanche with an even number of games played, 1 point behind the Ducks but with a game in hand, ahead of the Flames, and only 2 points behind the Stars but with a game in hand.
The Avalanche have been ensuring points lately with points in 8 straight game and in 10 of their last 11 games. They are 2-1-3 in their last 6 road games and will be looking to avenge their 6-1 loss in St. Louis in early February.
The Avalanche are in a lot of ways the opposite of the Blues, ranking 9th in goals per game and 17th in goals against per game while the Blues rank 24th and 7th, respectively. The Avalanche have been good on special teams, 11th on the power play and 3rd on the penalty kill.
The Avalanche are led by Nathan MacKinnon who is tied for 4th in points and 2nd in game winning goals despite only playing 61 games. He is tied for the lead league in points per game with Nikita Kucherov at 1.34 points per game. He is riding a 9 game point streak where he has 8 goals and 17 points.
For the Blues, Carter Hutton is still out so Jake Allen will get the start with Ville Husso serving as the backup. Allen has done well against the Avalanche with a 92.7% save percentage and a 2.10 goals against average.
Look for Joel Edmundson to play with Jordan Schmaltz watching from the press box. With Edmundson back, I expect the lines to be as follows:
Forwards
Jaden Schwartz - Brayden Schenn – Vladimir Tarasenko
Alexander Steen - Kyle Brodziak – Patrik Berglund
Dmitrij Jaskin - Vladimir Sobotka – Tage Thompson
Nikita Soshnikov – Ivan Barbashev – Chris Thorburn
Defense
Carl Gunnarsson - Alex Pietrangelo
Vince Dunn - Colton Parayko
Joel Edmundson – Robert Bortuzzo
Goalie
Jake Allen
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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