Follow @stlgoalie On Thursday, the Blues finished up their best February ever with a 2-0 shutout of the Nashville Predators, their 3rd win over the Predators during that span, a perfect home record and a 12-1-1 record overall for the month.
The February highlights are still rolling in as Vladimir Tarasenko was named the 3rd star of the month with 10 goals and 22 points in the 14 games and Jordan Binnington, aka Winnington, was name the rookie of the month with his 10-1-0 record, 1.44 goals against average and 94.5% save percentage.
Getting back to Thursday, the Blues dominated the Predators outshooting them 44-19 overall and 29-9 in the last two period. Even with the dominance, Juuse Saros played spectacularly well, keeping the game tied at zero until the second half of the third period.
The Predators killed a Ryan Johansen penalty with less than 8 minutes left in the 3rd period but the Blues scored before Johansen could make it back into the play. On the play, Tarasenko again bests PK Subban this month, making a strong play at the blue line to keep Subban’s clearing attempt in the zone.
The test won’t get any easier when the Blues face a “Bunch of Jerks… in Carolina tonight. Under the guidance of former Blue Rod Brind’Amour, the Hurricanes are surging, going 10-3-0 in February and 3-1 in their last 4 home games. The Bunch of Jerks reference comes from a Don Cherry comment regardging the Canes’ post game, home win celebrations. Here are a couple of examples:
Duck, duck, @NHLCanes win. pic.twitter.com/bOCWv6fL3B
— NHL (@NHL) February 2, 2019
Everyone's ready for baseball season @spittinchiclets pic.twitter.com/MJKMFd2qWS
— Starting 9 (@Starting9) February 16, 2019
According to @SaraCivian, Justin Faulk and Hayden Fleury are in tonight while Calvin de Haan is out.
The Blues have won four straight against the Canes and 10 of their last 15, winning their last match 4-1 on November 6th. Against Carolina, many of the Blues players are streaking with Tarasenko having a five game point streak, Bozak averaging 1.5 points per game in his last 6 contests, and O’Reilly and Pietrangelo both averaging over a point a game in their last four and nine games, respectively.
The lineup is still in flux as it is not known if Brayden Schenn will be able to go but the projected lineup is this: Schwartz - O'Reilly - Tarasenko Steen- Bozak - Fabbri Maroon - Sundqvist - Thomas MacEachern - Barbashev - Sanford Edmundson - Pietrangelo Bouwmeester - Parayko Dunn - Bortuzzo Allen
As expected Allen will get the road start while Binnington will start tomorrow against the Stars.
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.