As the Blues have a penchant to do lately, they got beaten soundly coming off a win over a quality opponent when they lost 6-1 to the Vancouver Canucks on Sunday after defeating the Winnipeg Jets 1-0 two days earlier. This is fourth time in a row that the Blues lost by at least 4 goals after a quality victory. The others were a 3-2 win over Colorado followed by a 6-1 loss to Arizona; a 6-2 win over Nashville followed by a 8-4 loss to Winnipeg; and a 4-1 win over the Knights followed by a 4-0 loss to the Sharks.
Brock Boeser scored a bad bounce goal that was very similar to the one Patrick Lalime gave up to Martin Rucinsky in overtime, almost 13 years to the day. Remember it
here. Here is Boeser’s:
The Blues were playing well until the fluke goal. They completely folded after the goal. Every Blues forward other than Jordan Kyrou and Ryan O’Reilly were negative on the night. None of the forwards were rewarded with even 17:30 of ice time. Alexander Steen, Tyler Bozak, Ivan Barbashev, and Oscar Sundqvist combined for zero shots. Jay Bouwmeester, Joel Edmundson, Colton Parayko and Robert Bortuzzo combined to be -11.
Jake Allen had a 50% save percentage. Chad Johnson was poor in relief. So poor in fact that he was waived and Jordan Binnington was called up after the game. Johnson only has three quality starts in his seven starts and has been poor in two of his three relief appearances. Johnson was claimed by the Ducks.
Blues fans may want to note, according to Andy Strickland, that Binnington will remain a RFA if he plays in 28 NHL games otherwise he will become a UFA.
Brock Boesser and Elias Pettersson combined for 4 goals and 4 assists as the Blues allowed another 5 point performance to Pettersson.
The frustrating week continued with Zach Sanford and Robert Bortuzzo getting in a fight during practice yesterday. The frustration was clearly evident in some of the interviews and coaches after Sunday’s game as well. We’ll see if that frustration can be channeled tonight as they host the Florida Panthers.
The Panthers have been struggling as well, going 3-4-3 in their last 10 games and 5-6-2 on the road. The Panthers are 10th in goals per game but 27th in goals against. They have the 4th best power play but are 23rd on the penalty kill. They generate more shots on goal than any team not names the Carolina Hurricanes.
Jonathan Huberdeau leads the Panthers with 34 points in 28 games. Mike Hoffman, Evgenii Dadonov, and Keith Yandle all have 28 points in 28 games while Aleksander Barkov has 27 points in 28 games.
Against the Panthers, Ryan O’Reilly, Vladimir Tarasenko, Jaden Schwartz and Colton Parayko have combined for 43 points in 44 games while Alexander Steen only has 4 points in 22 games.
Jake Allen is your expected starter. Allen has struggled mightily against the Panthers, going 1-4 with only an 87.2% save percentage.
In other lineup news, Joel Edmundson is out with an upper body injury (hand) and Jordan Kyrou and Zach Sanford are your healthy scratches.
Expect the lines to start like this:
Steen - O'Reilly – Tarasenko
Schwartz - Schenn - Perron
Maroon - Bozak - Thomas
Nolan - Barbashev - Sundqvist
Dunn - Parayko
Bouwmeester - Bortuzzo
Butler - Schmaltz
Allen
NHL Champions for Charity
We’ve gotten some traction on the charity wager among the Central Division bloggers. More on that to come.
It’s a great day for hockey.
St Louis Blues Blogger • 
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