The St. Louis Blues should remember their last game against the Winnipeg Jets. It was only five days ago and it was a stinker.
The St. Louis Blues have proven themselves to be one of the better teams in the NHL, currently, at letting the past go. They have a bad game or two, put it out of their minds and get back to business.
For once, that should not be the case. The Blues need to remember every mistake, every goal against and every faceoff loss from a 5-2 loss to the Winnipeg Jets.
That is not to say they should dwell on any of that, but learn from it as they tend to do. Revenge is not the word to use, but with the Jets in St. Louis, repaying the favor would be nice.
St. Louis already fixed their offensive woes with a 6-3 win over Carolina. Really, the score was not even that close as the Blues just had a few moments where they stopped skating and it cost them.
Against Winnipeg, they need to stay laser focused for the entire 60 minutes. Like the Blues of last season, the Jets are trying to pull themselves from a slump and make a late playoff push. The Blues can be the ones to douse that flame with a win in St. Louis.
How they stack up
The St. Louis Blues improved to 32-14-8 with their win over Carolina. They have the second best goal differential in the Western Conference at plus-21 with 174 goals for and 153 against.
The Winnipeg Jets dropped their next game following their 5-2 win over the Blues. They fell at home to Nashville, 2-1 in overtime, so they got a point out of it.
The Jets are 26-23-5 with 57 points. Winnipeg is only four points out of a playoff spot, but as of right now, for the first time in forever, the two wild card spots belong to Pacific Division teams.
Despite the Blues loss last week, they still have an advantage over the Jets for the season series. The Blues are 2-1-0 against Winnipeg in 2019-20, with the win in St. Louis at an impressive 4-1.
Unfortunately, that does not bode well for the Blues if they already won at home. St. Louis has not won two home games against the Jets since 2013-14.
In addition, despite their lowly overall record, the Jets are 14-11-2 on the road.
According to the Blues website, these players have hot streaks going against Winnipeg:
"Brayden Schenn has a four-game point streak against the Jets (one goal, four assists)David Perron has 12 points in his last nine games against Winnipeg (five goals, seven assists)Ryan O’Reilly has 13 points in his last 11 games against the Jets (six goals, seven assists)"
Projected Lineup
Here is the lineup from Chris Pinkert:
Forwards
Schwartz – Schenn – Thomas
Sanford – O’Reilly – Perron
Steen – Bozak – Kyrou
Blais – Barbashev – Brouwer
Defense
Gunnarsson – Pietrangelo
Bouwmeester – Parayko
Dunn – Faulk
Goalie
Binnington
Basically the same lineup frim the Carolina game. If it’s not broken, dont fix it.
Prediction
The funny thing about predictions is I seem to be either somewhat close or completely wrong. I was somewhat close with the Carolina game in that I predicted the Blues would double up the Hurricanes. However, 4-2 is not the same as 6-3.
Similarly, if not for the empty net goals, I would have been right on the Winnipeg game at 3-2. However, I had the wrong team winning. So, whatever bets you place, you can pretty much rule out whatever score I give.
Knowing full well that I’m not the best at guessing these things, I still think the Blues will use their last game against Winnipeg to fuel them. Despite the fact the Blues have not won both home games in six years, I think they pull it off tonight.
Blues take it 4-1.