Follow @stlgoalie On Saturday afternoon, the Blues beat the Bruins in a shootout thriller.
The Blues opened the scoring a little seven minutes into the 1st period. Oskar Sundqvist starts the play with a beautiful pass break up in the neutral zone.
Binnington was strong in the shootout while getting some help (Marchand lost the puck and didn’t even get a shot off), stopping 5 of 6 shots. Sammy Blais scored the game winning shootout goal.
In watching the game, it appeared Alex Pietrangelo may be battling an illness. He seemed to be conserving energy more, a bit slower than usual, etc. The minutes suggested as much with him only playing 20 minutes even though Chris Butler played less than 12 minutes. Colton Parayko played almost 28 minutes and Jay Bouwmeester almost 24 minutes.
The Blues will travel to Minnesota to face the Wild. Since the Blues beat the Wild in Minnesota last Sunday 4-0 in Minnesota, the Wild have gone 2-1-0, losing their only home game and winning their two road games. The Wild are looking to end their six game home losing streak and have lost 12 of their last 14 at home. Unlike last week, the Wild now sit outside of a playoff spot thanks in part to only going 3-5-2 in their last 10 games.
The Wild are only 26th in goals per game and 12th in goals against per game. The Wild have the 14th best power play and the 18th best penalty kill. It’s interesting that both the Blues and Wild are in the top 6 in shots against with the Wild 6th and the Blues 3rd.
Zach Parise leads the Wild with 52 points in 61 games. Ryan Suter leads the defense with 40 points in 62 games. Devan Dubnyk has a 91% save percentage this season.
Devan Dubnyk has a career 89.8% save percentage. Jason Zucker has 15 points in 19 games against the Blues while Eric Staal has 21 points in 26 games.
Tarasenko has 24 points and 11 goals in 25 games against the Wild. Schwartz has 20 points and 10 goals in 25 games. Ryan O’Reilly had a goal and assist in the 4-0 win a week ago.
Binnington was in net last week so Jake Allen will get his shot today. Allen has a 90.4% career save percentage against the Wild.
The Blues held Jordan Kyrou out of last night’s rampage game as a late scratch before calling him up and putting Brayden Schenn on injured reserve. I believe they did this because they sent Kyrou straight to Minnesota last night to play in tonight’s game. With the flu impacting the team and injuries, they likely wanted to ensure Kyrou didn’t get hurt in last night’s game so that he could definitely play tonight. I’d be very shocked if he doesn’t find the lineup tonight.
Does Schenn’s injury and Perron still being on injured reserve make the Blues light buyers? I am thinking it might if the right opportunity presented itself.
With Schenn expected out again, the flu spreading through the team and Kyrou called up, the lineup wil be a mystery until close to game time other than Allen being in goal.
NHL Champions for Charity We’ve gotten some traction on the charity wager among the Central Division bloggers. One charity I’ll highlight is Best Buddies Tennessee https://www.bestbuddies.org/tennessee/from your Predators’s Blogger Paul McCann. Best Buddies Tennessee is dedicated to establishing a volunteer movement that creates opportunities for one-to-one friendships, integrated employment, leadership development and inclusive living opportunities for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. As a side note, I recently got to experience a Best Buddies even in the St. Louis area that was led by the Eureka high school football team. It was a lot of fun and brought a lot of joy to those involved.
It’s a great day for hockey.