Follow me on twitter Follow @stlgoalie Tonight ushers in the Mike Yeo coaching era for the Blues when he goes against Mike Babcock’s Toronto Maple Leafs. Note that the game is a late 8pm start because of the Bob Plager retirement ceremony.
The Leafs are 11-8-6 on the road but have lost their last 2. Of course, they had won the 4 previous. Much like the Blues, the Leafs are in the middle of a the wild card playoff race as they sit 1 point out of the 2nd wild card spot.
This will be the first look that Blues fans get at Auston Matthews and Mitchell Marner. It’s rookie week at the Scottrade with the top 3 rookies in the NHL (in points) all playing within a 3 day span. Matthews is tied with Laine with 23 goals while Marner it tied with Laine in total points with 41.
Frederick Andersen has rebounded nicely in net for the Leafs, pushing his save percentage to almost 92% after a bit of a rocky start to the season. He also has earned 21 wins so far this season.
For the Blues, they will be looking to end a 4 game home losing streak. Poor offensive reads, poor defensive coverage, lazy and dumb penalties and below average goaltending have been the Blues Achilles heels this season.
The loss on Tuesday kept their goals against average over 5 in their last 7 losses. You aren’t going to win many NHL games giving up over 5 goals a game.
The Blues’ lines are expected to start like they finished Tuesday night: Steen – Stastny – Perron Schwartz – Lehtera - Tarasenko Fabbri – Berglund – Yakupov Upshall – Barbashev – Reaves Bouwmeester –Pietrangelo Gunnarsson – Shattenkirk Edmundson - Parayko 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 donate in their name.