St. Louis Blues Vs. Anaheim 3.0: Pregame News And Notes
By Todd Panula
The St. Louis Blues had a fantastic performance in Los Angeles against one of the league’s best defensive teams. Now, they have a chance to build on that in their final game out west.
The St. Louis Blues took care of business in a must-win scenario in Los Angeles. Going up against the best defensive team in the Western Conference, the Blues unleashed a biblical proportion of goals on the world.
Now the question is whether they can repeat that performance. Nobody is asking them to score that many goals again, because that just does not happen every day. The Blues need that same kind of energy and team continuity to win though.
That will be the key at this point in the season. We would all love to see them crank out a carbon copy of the L.A. game, but a win is a win at this point in the year. More so than any time in the season, if you win ugly, who cares? The Blues just need two points, even if it comes to overtime.
It is not going to be easy. The Blues have scored a glut of goals only to fall flat on their face. They’ve also had their struggles with the Ducks lately as well.
No time like the present to break that mold and hope they can keep some momentum going.
Know Thy Foe
The Anaheim Ducks are holding on to the third playoff spot in the Pacific Division. They currently have 80 points on the year.
They Ducks are trying to fend off the L.A. Kings, who are only one point behind. The Kings have a much easier game tonight as well, having to take on Vancouver.
Anaheim will be difficult to beat tonight, if they were ever easy. They have lost two games in a row, so they will be razor focused on keeping that losing streak from reaching three.
Anaheim is 6-3-1 in their last 10 games. They had a nail bitter in their last game, losing to Dallas 2-1.
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The Ducks have dominated things between them and the Blues lately. Anaheim has won the last three meetings, two of which have already come in this season.
Anaheim won 3-2 and 3-1 in November and December. That was when the Blues were still playing relatively well, so a win will be even harder to come by with the Note’s current state.
Ryan Getzlaf is riding a five-game point streak. He has two goals and 10 assists over that span.
Blues Tidbits
St. Louis looked impressive against the Kings. Their record over the last 10 is still terrible though. The Blues are sitting at 2-6-2 over their last 10 games.
The Blues status in the standings is still precarious. A win could put them within a point of the eighth seed. It could also see them stay two points out since the Kings play Vancouver tonight. That is perhaps the most depressing thing right now is that the Blues can keep winning but not gain any traction.
The Blues have some decent streaks going against the Ducks according to the team website, though they are not quite as high as their point streaks against previous teams:
"– Jaden Schwartz has four assists in his last five games against the Ducks.– Vladimir Tarasenko has seven points in his last nine games (four goals, three assists).– Patrik Berglund has five points in his last seven games (four goals, one assist).– Kyle Brodziak has two goals in his last two games.– Jake Allen is 5-3-0 with a 1.92 goals-against average, a .924 save-percentage and one shutout in nine career starts."
Speaking of Allen, he has looked as good in the past two games as he has in a long time. Even though he is 1-1-0 in his last two games, he has stopped 72 of 75 shots against. That’s a heavier workload than you would like, but if he’s up to it then so be it.
Projected Lineup from the team website:
Forwards
Jaden Schwartz – Brayden Schenn – Vladimir Tarasenko
Alexander Steen – Kyle Brodziak – Patrik Berglund
Tage Thompson – Vladimir Sobotka – Dmitrij Jaskin
Nikita Soshnikov – Ivan Barbashev – Chris Thorburn
Defense
Carl Gunnarsson – Alex Pietrangelo
Colton Parayko – Vince Dunn
Jordan Schmaltz – Robert Bortuzzo
Goalie
Where To Watch
Television:
Fox Sports Midwest, SportsNet West
Streaming:
Fox Sports Go App, NHL.tv (subscriber fee)
Radio:
KMOX, KMOX.com, Blues app
The puck drops around 9 pm Central Time.
Prediction
Surprisingly, I have hope for the rest of the season. This game? Not so much.
I love the Blues. I think they’ve started turning a corner, even if it seems to be too late. No matter if they’ve had a great team or a mediocre team, they just never seem to do well against the Ducks.
Of course the Blues have wins over Anaheim, so winning tonight is entirely plausible. The Ducks are just one of those teams that always seem to come along at the worst times, especially when the Blues need points so desperately.
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It just feels like a lot working against the Blues. Despite the goals, they still aren’t playing at full capability and have a tendency to drop off between good games.
That said, I think they keep it close, but Anaheim takes it. I’ll say it’s a 3-2 loss. Hopefully I am wrong. I definitely was in my prediction with the L.A. game