Tomorrow night the St. Louis Blues face the Winnipeg Jets for the second time in two weeks. And just like the last game, a shootout win for St. Louis, this game promises to be tight.
You can see in the highlights below that the Jets and the Blues were pretty evenly matched; what ended up saving the Blues was Brian Elliott’s standout performance in net (though he did allow a Jet or two to hang out in his net once in a while).
Elliott did the work of a number of goalies that night, pulling St. Louis’ bacon out of the fire a couple of times.
Editor In Leaf
His current save percentage stands at .923, while his save percentage for that game against the Jets was an outstanding .968, earning him the second star of the game and making his top ten games of the season, percentage-wise. He fended off 31 saves out of 32 shots on goal.
While Elliott was top-notch against the Jets in February, the Blues need to step up and lower the number of shots against him this time around.
What About The Trades?
Since the 2015 NHL trade deadline the Winnipeg Jets have worked on integrating forward Lee Stempniak to their team, as well as former Carolina Hurricanes winger, Jiri Tlusty. Both were big names on the trade market, and made it clear Winnipeg is making a serious bid for the Playoffs this year.
They may well get there.
The Jets currently hold the second wild card, and are within spitting distance of the first wild card for the Western Division, at only one point behind Minnesota. They are six points off from third place, currently held by the Chicago Blackhawks. Essentially, they’re coming hard for any points they can get. The last time the Jets made the playoffs was in 2007, when they were still the Atlanta Thrashers.
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The Blues themselves were no slouches at deadline, adding several defenders to strengthen themselves at defense with Kevin Shattenkirk out and the postseason coming up quickly. They added center Olli Jokinen as well, who faced down his former team Saturday night and came out the victor.
So while the Jets added scoring power to their third line, St. Louis grew stronger at defense while increasing offensive output, and shoring themselves up down the center. They will still be well matched, but comparing Elliott’s and Pavelec’s stats show clearly that Elliott is the superior goalie.
The Blues have a good game of hockey ahead of them. While it would be unfair to subject Elliott to 30+ shots over the course of the game when the defense is more than capable of shutting many of those down, their focus should be on putting shots on net. St. Louis needs to concentrate on maintaining the forward momentum they enjoyed against Toronto on Saturday, bringing them a 6-1 victory over the Leafs.
The Jets and Leafs are hardly in the same place game-wise this season but Winnipeg’s goal tending is lacking, with an average save percentage of .909 over 37 games for their starting goalie. Yes, that reflects Winnipeg’s problems at defense, but it’s a flashing neon sign that this is where the Blues should concentrate their efforts
Don’t forget to join us at @BleedinBlueFS while we livetweet the game!