The St. Louis Blues will be back home for seven-straight games starting Thursday night against the Columbus Blue Jackets. It is the team’s longest stretch of consecutive home games this year.
The St. Louis Blues are coming off a three-game road trip through Central and Eastern Canada where they went 1-1-1 and managed to salvage three points.
St. Louis lost to Montreal with just nine seconds left in the game when defenseman Colton Parayko was unable to clear the zone and the Canadiens capitalized to steal a point from the Blues.
Needing to bounce back, the Blues played their best 60-minute game of the season against the Toronto Maple Leafs a few days later, beating the Leafs 4-1.
After seemingly turning the page on the season, the Blues came into Winnipeg and played the best hockey that I have seen a Blues team play in a long time, only to blow two third period leads and eventually fall in overtime.
Columbus Blue Jackets (5th Place In Atlantic)
Record: 4-4-0
Last 10: 4-4-0
Point Leaders: Artemi Panarin (9), Cam Atkinson (7)
The Blue Jackets have been one of the NHL’s best regular season teams over the past two years but have gotten off to a slow start here in 2018.
Columbus has a lot of pieces that make them a very dangerous opponent including all-world goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky. Bobrovsky has started six of the teams first eight games and has struggled, going 2-4 with a .872 SV% while allowing 3.87 goals per game.
Offensively, it is no surprise that Panarin is leading the way in scoring. Even after being held off the score-sheet for the past two games, Panarin (who is a good friend of Vladimir Tarasenko) will need to be held in check for tonight’s game.
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There will be couple changes to the Blues lineup tonight. Sammy Blais was sent down to the Blues AHL affiliate in San Antonio and it looks like Oscar Sundqvist will be back in the lineup after being injured in the preseason.
The fourth line for the Blues has not been the problem so far this season. So although worth noting that Blais is no longer with the Blues, it shouldn’t have a big impact on the outcome of the game.
The Blues also announced some injury news regarding defenseman Robert Bortuzzo, he has been placed on IR and will be reevaluated in two weeks. Unfortunately for Blues fans, this means Jay Bouwmeester will be the Blues sixth defenseman for the foreseeable future.
This is the longest homestand of the year for the Blues and with the way the team has started this season, it is one of the most important stretches of hockey St. Louis will play this season.
The Blues will face CBJ, CHI, VGK, MIN (2), CAR, and SJS over the next three weeks at home. It is not the most difficult stretch of hockey the Blues will play this year, but an important part of the schedule regardless.