The Avalanche visit another arena Thursday, the Scottrade Center in St. Louis, that has been a house of horrors for them, just like the Xcel Energy Center in Minnesota.
After beating the Wild 5-1 in St. Paul on Tuesday, they have an opportunity to exorcize some more demons when they take on the Blues.
The
GAME NOTES.
The Avalanche lost all three previous games to the Blues this season, have lost five in a row in St. Louis and 13 of the past 15 games there.
"It's a good team," coach
Jared Bednar told reporters after the morning skate. "You look at the history of this team, the last couple years, their record, their personnel ... but it's no different than in going into Minny. We go in there, they had had (five) regulation losses there all year. We went in and played a good, solid game and we got the two points.
"I know the history between our club and the Blues hasn't been great, but we're not worried about that. We're just worried about the two points. We're coming in here trying to play the right way for 60 minutes, be real focused and try to get two points. If we do that, we have a chance."
Semyon Varlamov will play in his 15th consecutive game as
Jonathan Bernier continues to recover from his second concussion. It will be Varlamov's 13th start in this stretch.
Bednar said Bernier won't be cleared in time to play Friday against Nashville at the Pepsi Center, so Varlamov or
Spencer Martin will get the start against the Predators.
The Predators are playing in Arizona on Thursday, so they'll also be playing their second game in two nights Friday.
The Avalanche (37-24-8) are in the second wild card playoff spot with 82 points in the always-changing Western Conference standings, one point behind Dallas (38-26-7) for the first wild card. The Avalanche have two games in hand and two more regulation or overtime wins (36-34) than the Stars, who are idle Thursday.
The Avalanche have won two games in a row and are 5-0-3 in the past eight games.
The Blues (37-27-5) are three points behind the Avalanche and have played the same number of games. They've won two straight and are 3-1-1 in the past five games after losing seven in a row (0-6-1).
The lineup:
FORWARDS
Gabriel Landeskog -- Nathan MacKinnon -- Mikko Rantanen
Sven Andrighetto -- Tyson Jost -- J.T. Compher
Matt Nieto -- Carl Soderberg -- Blake Comeau
Alexander Kerfoot -- Dominic Toninato -- Gabriel Bourque
DEFENSE
Nikita Zadorov -- Tyson Barrie
Patrik Nemeth -- Samuel Girard
Duncan Siemens -- David Warsofsky
GOALIES
Semyon Varlamov
Spencer Martin
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