The St. Louis Blues find themselves atop the Central Division and Western Conference headed into a late one with the San Jose Sharks before the holiday break.
The St. Louis Blues are riding a four-game home sweep where they defeated Vegas, Chicago, Colorado and Edmonton by a total goal differential of +7. This bodes well for a team making a bid for a repeat Stanley Cup.
The +7 in those four games raised their total on the season to a +13 which is good for 7th overall in the league. The league lead in goal differential belongs to the Avalanche at a staggering +29! The St. Louis Blues opponent, the San Jose Sharks, goal differential is equally as staggering as the Avs, but on the flip side at a -27 good for 29th in the league.
I bring up the goal differential stat because it is a very strong indicator of teams that are going to make the playoffs and teams that are not. Typically the teams with the higher goal differential are in. Very rarely does a team with a low to negative goal differential get into the dance.
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With that being said what is going on in San Jose? The Sharks have just fired their well respected and highly regarded in the league head coach Pete Deboer.
Deboer will find another head coaching gig and fast in the league. The woes of San Jose this season have little to do with Deboer and more to do with the aging lineup and the younger players not developing as quickly as the front office had hoped.
Despite their goal differential, the Sharks are no slouches. The currently sit 7pts out of the last wild card spot. They are fortunate to be in a semi-lackluster Pacific Division so things still can change for them and change in a hurry.
Aside from the aging roster, the Sharks for the past few seasons have been victims of terrible and inconsistent goaltending. They made a move to get Erik Karlsson from the Senators and Karlsson’s time as a Shark has not been very good.
The Blues handled the Sharks pretty well in the Conference Finals last year so the Sharks will be looking to get even. The Blues can’t go easy. I mentioned in my season take so far that the team seems to let off the gas against an unworthy foe and this season’s Sharks look more unworthy than worthy to me.
Hopefully, the Blues can go into the Holiday break riding a 5 game winning streak with ease and exploit the age and inconsistent goaltending of the Sharks.
The defense will need to still focus on shutting down Logan Couture and Tomas Hertl. Both of those forwards can hurt you nad Brent Burns, although having a down year by his standards can still hurt you at any moment.
Evander Kane is big, physical and offensive. Not just offensive on the score sheet, but in many other ways as well. I hope Robert Bortuzzo draws into the lineup for this one tomorrow night! That matchup will be a fun one and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Colton Parayko drop the mitts in this game either.
Parayko or The Teddy Bear as I like to call him, has been upping his physical game of late and he looks like he may have a bur in his saddle and ready to drop the mitts soon.
Joe Thornton is still running around at his age. Father Time has been lining up with Hertl lately and collecting assists lately. Thornton and David Perron have a history so I expect to see DP57 getting under the skin if Thornton in this game.
The bottom line for this tilt is it’s still the St. Louis Blues squaring off with the San Jose Sharks. Despite the aging lineup and up and down start for the Sharks, it will be a fun physical game. The Blues should come out on top as long as the defense plays as well as it has been the last two games.
We will be bringing you some tidbits over the holiday break to keep the Blue Bleeders from bleeding out over the break! Thank you for the read and if you want to join in on our twitter to tweet about the game tomorrow night I’ll be on there!
Drop the puck!