Follow @stlgoalie On Saturday afternoon, the Blues got back in the win column, defeating the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-1. Jordan Binngton also ended his slump, playing extremely well stopping 40 shots.
The Blues opened the scoring about 5 minutes into the game when Oskar Sundqvist took a pass from Jaden Schwartz and one-timed it past his former teammate Matt Murray.
About a minute and a half into the 2nd period, Pat Maroon extends the lead to three based on a great individual effort by Robert Thomas. Thomas reads the Penguins face-off win and intercepts the puck. He races down the left wing, making a stutter step type move before going behind the net and finding Maroon in front. Do you notice a trend of strong individual plays being made that allow other teammates to succeed?
Vince Dunn would later add a power play goal from Vince Dunn to finish the game 5-1.
Pat Maroon had an outstanding game with a goal and an assist, +2, 2 shots, and 3 hits in only 12:37 of ice time. Craig Berube managed forward minutes well with no forward other than Oskar Sundqvist playing even 18 minutes. He also managed Alex Pietrangelo’s minutes down to under 19 minutes. Pietrangelo only played one 15 second shift in the last 6 minutes of the game. Alexander Steen didn’t play in the last 9 minutes of the game.
Today the Blues will be in Buffalo to take on the Sabres. The Sabres have lost four in a row, only won once in their last 10 games, lost three home games in a row and are effectively eliminated from the playoffs though not technically. The Sabres lost 4-2 to the Hurricanes in Carolina last night thanks in part to some suspect goaltending from Linus Ullmark.
Jack Eichel leads the Sabres with 72 points in 66 games while Jeff Skinner has 37 goals in 71 games. Eichel has struggled against the Blues with only three points in six games while Skinner has been a Blues killer with 9 goals and 12 points in 13 games.
Carter Hutton will get the start against his former club today. He has struggled against the Blues going 0-3-3 with a 3.19 goals against average and an 88.8% save percentage.
The Sabres will be looking to avenge their 4-1 loss to the Blues in late December in St. Louis. The Blues are 12-1 in their last 13 games against the Sabres. This will be O’Reilly’s 1st return to Buffalo since the trades. O’Reilly has had success against the Sabres with 9 points in 8 games.
Perron and Schwartz each are averaging a point per game against the Sabres in a combined 22 games. Jake Allen will get the start as it was an easy call to start Binnington yesterday as Allen has been poor against the Penguins and great against the Sabres, going 6-1 with a 1.40 goals against average and a 94.7% save percentage.
O’Reilly has a seven game point streak with nine points during the run. Assuming Steen dresses, it will be his 700th game as a Blues player.
Assuming Steen is not hurt, I expect the lineup to be the same: Schenn-O'Reilly-Perron Maroon-Bozak-Thomas Schwartz-Sundqvist-Steen MacEachern-Barbashev-Sanford Dunn-Pietrangelo Bouwmeester-Parayko Del Zotto-Bortuzzo Allen
NHL Champions for Charity We’ve gotten some traction on the charity wager among the Central Division bloggers. One charity I’ll highlight is Meagan’s Walk http://meaganswalk.com from your Blackhawk’s Blogger Justin Lowe. Meagan’s Walk seeks to bring hope and awareness to cancerous brain tumors, the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in children and young people.
It’s a great day for hockey.