St. Louis Blues Hoping To Face Wile E. Coyote, Not Arizona Coyotes

The St. Louis Blues are in an odd spot. They are coming off a win and have the excitement of a new player on their roster, but they are staring a team in the face that has owned them and is fighting like crazy for a playoff spot.

The St. Louis Blues just came off a decent win against the New Jersey Devils, getting a 3-0 shutout win and it could have been much more if not for facing a hot goaltender. It was just the kind of moral boost they needed after plenty of struggles.

St. Louis also just picked up a new player, adding Marco Scandella to their roster. Scandella won’t be a straight-up replacement for Jay Bouwmeester, on either skill level or locker room presence, but he is definitely excited to be here.

Scandella returns to the Central Division, where he spent many seasons with the Minnesota Wild and battled the Blues in two different playoff series. He spent the last couple years in Buffalo and then a couple months in Montreal, so being in a playoff race would definitely be exciting after knowing you were going nowhere fast with the other two franchises.

However, there is one problem facing the Blues this evening. The Arizona Coyotes have had their number of late.

It seems like no matter whether the Coyotes were in the basement or in the running for a playoff spot, the Blues have struggled against them. St. Louis is clearly hoping that will change and hoping that they will face the Looney Tunes Wile E. Coyote instead of a hungry Arizona Coyotes team.

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How they stack up

The only bad thing about the Blues win against New Jersey was all it did was keep them tied for the division. Dallas won their last game, so the two teams remain tied with 76 points atop the Central Division.

St. Louis has fewer wins than the Stars with a record of 33-17-10, but most sites have the Blues on top. One has to assume that is due to the Blues having fewer losses at this point.

The Blues struggles are certainly not in the rear view mirror yet. Despite winning their last game, they are 3-5-2 in their last 10 games.

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Arizona comes in fighting for their playoff lives. They are currently in the last wild card spot in the Western Conference and trying to hold off teams like Winnipeg and Nasvhille.

Arizona has 68 points and a record of 30-25-8, only one point up on the Jets and only two points up on Nashville. The crazy thing is the Pacific Division is so tight that the Coyotes are only three points back from the top divisional spot. The Coyotes are 4-4-2 in their last 10.

As far as this matchup goes, the Coyotes have all but owned the Blues in recent years. St. Louis has not won a season series against Arizona since 2016-17.

The Blues have already lost two games to Arizona this season as well. St. Louis lost 3-2 in a shootout at home in November and then fell 3-1 in the desert in December.

The only reason that might be a positive is because the Blues have gone 1-2 against Arizona the last two seasons. That means they’re due for another win this evening, right? Surely.

Projected Lineup

Here is the projected lineup from the team website:

Forwards

Schwartz – O’Reilly – Schenn
Sanford – Thomas – Perron
Steen – Bozak – Kyrou
Barbashev – Sundqvist – Blais

Defense

Gunnarsson – Pietrangelo
Scandella – Parayko
Dunn – Faulk

Goalie

Binnington

Going into this, I knew Scandella would be with Parayko but I was hoping for something different just because Faulk and Dunn do not go together well.

Also, I’d prefer the Blues play Allen to save Binnington’s legs for the stretch run but they dont seem interested. Hopefully theyll be right and I’m wrong.

Prediction

For whatever reason, trying to gauge the Blues against the Coyotes proves to be exceedingly difficult. However, the Coyotes will be without Darcy Kuemper, who has been a large reason why the Blues have not scored much against Arizona of late. But Kuemper did not play against the Blues in December and the Blues still lost, so who knows.

Ultimately, the Blues will need to find defensive chemistry quickly. Scandella is a veteran and a defender first, so it’s not like he is going jump into the play and leave someone else hanging.

Nevertheless, sometimes you do not know the tendencies of your partner and that can leave gaps. St. Louis has enough of those with the guys they’ve had for years.

All that in mind, I think the Blues do find a way to play together as a team regardless of the trade and the line shakeup we have seen in recent games. Blues win 4-2.

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