**4/12/16 Practice update** All Blues are present and accounted for and partaking in practice this morning. STL line Fabbri, Stastny, Brouwer Berglund, Backes, Steen Upshall, Brodziak, Reaves (wonder how long before Ott gets a look for Reaves)
Extras are as you would expect - Bortuzzo, Lindbohm, Jaskin, Paajarvi and Ott.
Also, Tyler Johnson is practicing for the lightning this morning.
I’ll be back with a more qualitative series preview but I wanted to share a quick by the numbers preview.
Head to Head - The Hawks took 7 points while the Blues earned 6. Pretty even. - Blues were 2-0 Jaden Schwartz and 2-1 with Paul Stastny. The Hawks were 2-0 with Marian Hossa and 2-1 with Duncan Keith. Without Hossa they were 0-3 and 0-2 without Keith. Interestingly, they Hawks were 0-2 with Ladd. - Both teams scored 7 even strength goals if you ignore empty net goals and extra attacker goals. - Hawks goalies combined for a 92.0% save percentage against the Blues 91.6% - Both teams scored 4 power play goals. - Blues took 154 shots to the Hawks 150. - Both teams scored 12 non-empty net goals. - The Hawks blocked 73 shots while the Blues only blocked 58. - Vladimir Tarasenko averaged a goal a game and 1.4 points per game. - Alexander Steen, Patrick Kane, and Marian Hossa each averaged a point per game. - Kevin Shattenirk averaged 0.75 points per game with Duncan Ketih just behind at 0.67 and Alex Pietrangelo a hair further back at 0.60. - Robby Fabbri, David Backes, Andrew Shaw and Teuvo Teravainen all averaged around ¾ a point per game.
Faceoffs – head to head - Artem Anisimov struggled mightily in the faceoff circle – 13%, 33%, 33% and 57% in his 4 games. - Jonathan Toews on the other hand was brilliant winning 79%, 62%, 67%, 71%, and 67%. - Marcus Kruger was also strong in the dot at 80%, 47%, and 60% - Jori Lehtera struggled winning only 40%, 36%, 73%, 46%, and 38%.
Day and late games (1 of 4 and 2 of 4 of the scheduled games) - Both teams are 3-1 in true day games. The Blues are 8-2-2 in later starts while the Hawks are 6-1-2. Pretty even.
It’s a great day for hockey.