Follow me on twitter Follow @stlgoalie Tonight the Blues will be looking for back to back wins on the road and back to back wins against the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Lightning are in the last game of a short two game home stand after defeating the Red Wings on Tuesday. Before that victory, the Lightning had lost two in a row at home and five of their last six.
The Lightning are still without Steven Stamkos and now are also without St Louis’ own, Ben Bishop.
Nikita Kucherov leads the way with 13 goals and 30 points in 28 games while Victor Hedman continues to be one of the best defenseman in the league by putting up 26 points in 33 games while drawing tough defensive assignments. Hedman has been on fire with a four game point streak where he has tallied 7 points. Alex Killorn, Tyler Johnson, and Jonathan Drouin are all around 10 goals for the year.
For the Blues Patrik Berglund hopes to remain hot, having scored four goals in his last four games. Alex Pietrangelo appears to be back in the lineup tonight with Carl Gunnarsson being the odd man out. Paul Stastny will also be out as he was placed on injured reserve today, allowing recent call up Wade Megan to make his NHL debut.
From what I can tell, the lines look to start like this tonight: Schwartz – Lehtera – Tarasenko Steen – Berglund –Perron Fabbri – Brodziak – Jaskin Upshall – Megan – Rattie Edmundson – Pietrangelo Hunt – Shattenkirk Bouwmeester – Parayko Hutton
No time today for my NHL nuggets or a recap.
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.