Follow @stlgoalie The Blues are in Columbus tonight to take on the Blue Jackets at 6pm CST, looking to stay undefeated on Saturdays. The Blues are 4-0-0 on Saturday while only being 3-5-3 otherwise. In their last nine games, the Blues have been held to 1 goal or less six times and 2 goals twice. Their only offensive success came against the Avalanche where they broke out for five goals. Even with the five goal game, they only averaged 1.56 goals per game during those nine games.
When you look at the season to date, the Blues are almost 20% through the season and, the majority of the time, have been struggling to score. In 12 of their 15 games, the Blues are only averaging 1.42 goals per game. The other 3 games have been goal outburst, averaging 5.33. Given their scoring struggles, Blues fans should feel fortunate that they have earned 57% of their possible points, 1.13 points per game. Perhaps more impressive, they have earned 5 points in games in which they only have scored 1 goal.
The Blue Jackets have 14 points in their last 10 games and are averaging over 3 goals per game in those ten games. Both teams are coming off back to back games where they lost the second in regulation and played an overtime game in the first.
Tonight’s game will be a rematch of last Saturday’s game that the Blues won in overtime on a Vladimir Tarasenko goal. Unlike last Saturday, expect both Sergei Bobrovsky and Jake Allen to get the start in net. I doubt anyone would have expected Alexander Wenneberg to have more points than Vladimir Tarasenko but he does, in three fewer games no less. I also doubt anyone would have expected Colton Paryako, Robby Fabbri, Jori Lehtera, and Patrik Berglund to combine for only 3 goals through 15 games. Even more surprising, Boone Jenner and Brandon Dubinsky have only combined for 1 goal so far.
I know some people were rubbed the wrong way by Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella’s comment about Ryan Reaves after last Saturday’s game but it appears to have been much ado about nothing as outlined by Adam Portzline here.
As to the lines tonight, the Blues will be experimenting with lines and the lines should start something like this: Schwartz – Berglund - Steen Fabbri - Lehtera - Tarasenko Perron - Stastny - Yakupov Upshall - Brodziak - Jaskin Bouwmeester – Pietrangelo Gunnarsson – Shattenkirk Lindbohm – Parayko Allen
For those curious, Yakupov did play almost 15 minutes in Nahsville while Jaskin played less than 10 minutes.
Jammer’s 9 NHL Nuggets 1) Special teams has been a lot more extreme this season with the Flyers and Blue Jackets scoring on more than 29% of their power plays while the Canucks and Flames are scoring on less than 9%. 2) The aforementioned also applies to the PK where the Blackhawks are killing barely more than 2/3 of their penalties. 3) The Blues and Blue Jackets are tied for league best in PK at 92%. 4) The Rangers are averaging 4.14 goals per game. 5) The Canadiens have a 89.3% points percentage. The Capitals led the NHL last year at 73.2%. 6) The Jets have the top two goal scorers in the NHL in Patrik Laine and Mark Scheifele though Sidney Crosby has the league’s best goals per game average at 1.1 goals per game. 7) Crosby’s success is because of his ridiculous 31% shooting percentage though four players with 5 or more goals have a higher shooting percentage with Torrey Mitchell leading at 55.6%. 8) The Maple Leafs have 3 of the top 4 rookies by points and 4 of the top 11. 9) The Rangers have 3 of the top 11 rookies by points, meaning two teams have 7 of the top 11.
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.