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It appears the Avalanche may be what the doctor needs to order for the Blues. The Blues are now 10-0-1 in their last 11 games against the Avalanche after last night’s 6-1. But for Vladimir Sobotka’s mishandling of the puck, Carter Hutton would have had another shutout. He stopped 23 of 24 Avalanche shots while helping kill all 5 Avalanche power plays.
Brayden Schenn set the tone off the opening faceoff, fighting Gabriel Landeskog just 3 seconds into the game and then more importantly opening the scoring midway through the 1st period and giving the Blues some breathing room about 5 minutes into the 2nd period.
Ivan Barbashev, Kyle Brodziak, Alex Pietrangelo and Paul Stastny added goals while Vince Dunn had 3 assists. Speaking of Dunn, he almost reached 20 minutes of ice time last night, forced into more active duty due to broken forearm injury suffered by Joel Edmundson in the 1st period.
It was interesting to see that that the rest of the extra minutes were given to Carl Gunnarsson and Jay Bouwmeester who played a game leading 27:45. Alex Pietrangelo played less than 25 minutes by comparison. This was likely done to help save Pietrangelo for tonight’s game against the Jets.
Fittingly, Sobotka was the only Blues player in the minus column last night at a -1.
The task tonight will be substantially as they face the team with the best home record in the league. The Jets are 20-3-2 at home this season and are 4 points ahead of the Blues even though they have 2 games in hand. They have won 2 in a row and are 6-2-2 in their last 10 games and things only seem to get worse for the Blues as the Jets look to have Mark Scheifele back in the lineup tonight.
The Jets are the 5th highest scoring team and an impressive 7th in goals against per game. Their power play is lethal, ranking 2nd in the league with the likes of the Penguins and Lightning and their penalty kill is in the top third of the league.
For the Blues, it sounds like the forward lines will be the same but obviously the defense will include Robert Bortuzzo as Joe Edmundson is out 6 weeks with a compound fracture of his forearm. Expect the lines to start like this:
Forwards
Alexander Steen - Paul Stastny – Vladimir Tarasenko
Jaden Schwartz - Brayden Schenn – Patrik Berglund
Dmitrij Jaskin - Vladimir Sobotka – Ivan Barbashev
Scottie Upshall – Kyle Brodziak – Chris Thorburn
Defense
Carl Gunnarsson - Alex Pietrangelo
Jay Bouwmeester - Colton Parayko
Robert Bortuzzo -Vince Dunn
Goalie
Jake Allen
It’s a great day for hockey.
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