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The Blues again took yet another stride toward making the playoffs on Saturday, defeating the Columbus Blue Jackets 2-1, ending the Blue Jackets 10 game win streak. With the win and the results of the other teams in the conference, the Blues now have the 7th best points earned percentage in the conference.
As has been the case over the last week or two, good puck retrieval and net front presence were the keys to their goals. Interestingly, traffic was also key to the Blue Jackets’ goal.
The Blues scored early, just 3 minutes into the game thanks to good puck retrieval by Patrik Berglund. Berglund starts the play with a slow dump into the zone. He battles past two Blues Jackets players and retrieves the puck, feeding it to Alexander Steen who is driving to the net. Steen beats Sergei Bobrovsky for the opening goal. The Blues likely now that Bobrovsky doesn’t play the puck a lot so these type of dump in plays are part of their strategy.
Midway through the 2nd period, Vladimir Tarasenko and Alex Pietrangelo work a perfect 2 on 2 break. Tarasenko gains the zone and crosses though the middle after Pietrangelo starts to drive the net. Pietrangelo distracts former Blue Ian Cole, allowing Tarasenko to cut to the center of the slot while Pietrangelo also cuts back to provide net front presence on Bobrovsky. Tarasenko ends up with enough space to beat Bobrovsky going back against the grain, past his trapper. Pietrangelo doesn’t get a point on the play but contributes more to the goal than either player who received an assist.
This is exactly why your coach tells you to drive to the net as good things will happen whether that be blown defensive assignments, distracting the goalie, getting rebounds, drawing penalties or something else.
The Blue Jackets would cut the lead in half about 5 minutes later on a goal from Cam Atkinson. Jake Allen likely never saw the shot because of all of the traffic around the release point. Watch how hard it is to pick up the shot in this clip. Not much Allen could do about this goal.
Tonight, the test doesn’t get a lot easier as the Blues will host the San Jose Sharks. The Blues have lost both games to the Sharks this season. The Sharks are 12th in goals per game and 8th in goals against per game with the league’s best penalty kill.
The Sharks have won 8 in a row, are 9-1 in their last 10 games and are a very good 20-12-6 on the road. They are 4-0-1 in the last 5 road games.
Marin Jones statistics against the Blues are slightly better than his current year and he is coming off a shutout of the Blues on March 8th. Brent Burns hasn’t exactly been a Blues killer in his career as he only has 23 points in 42 games. Notorious Blues killer Joe Thornton has been out since late January due to injury. Sharks relatively newcomer Evander Kane has 9 points in 16 games against the Blues.
Jake Allen has been good against the Sharks with a save percentage of 93% and a goals against average of 2.15, last stopping 34 of 35 shots on March 8th. In regards to forwards, Jaden Schwartz leads the way with 13 points in 14 games with Alexander Steen having 19 in 24 games. Vladimir Tarasenko has 11 in 15 games while Alex Pietrangelo has 18 in 24 games. Brayden Schenn has struggled with just a lone goal in 11 games versus the Sharks.
As to the lineup, expect it to be the same as the Blue Jackets game though Carter Hutton will be serving as the backup goalie. Nikita Soshnikov is still being evaluated for an upper-body injury and Scottie Upshall is being held out until the road trip.
The Blues are now on pace for 97.3 points. The other teams have the following point paces: Ducks - 98.2, the Kings 96.9 and the Avalanche 97.1. The Canucks host the Ducks tonight.
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 will donate in their name.
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