The St. Louis Blues have an extremely normal week of hockey ahead: three games, all on the NHL "peak" nights of Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. We love a straightforward schedule like that and, hopefully, the Blues can use the start of their five-game road trip to get back in the playoff mix. The team sits at 6-9-4 on the season, and their playoff hopes are fading quickly; American Thanksgiving is on the horizon, and if they can't get it together, they may have to pick a path for the rest of the season.
Tuesday, 11/18: @ Toronto Maple Leafs
The Blues kick off their road trip against their Eastern Conference counterpart: like the Blues, the Maple Leafs were expected to be contenders this season--but fate can be cruel. The Leafs are 8-9-2 on the season, hovering around the bottom of the Atlantic Division, and with several critical players on Injured Reserve (IR) at the time of writing, including star center Auston Matthews. The Blues have a real chance to kick the Leafs while they're down, though, as many Blues fans know, you can't count out a team coached by Craig Berube.
Thursday, 11/20: @ Philadelphia Flyers
That was an utterly wild game against the Flyers on Friday, huh? Well, the Blues get to do it all over again! The second game of their road trip takes them to Philadelphia, where the Flyers won't have played a game for four days. There's always a "rest versus rust" debate, but the 9-6-3 Flyers have proven to be pluckier than many anticipated before the season started and won't make this easy. Pro tip: don't allow the game to reach a shootout, because Trevor Zegras is a cheat code.
Saturday, 11/22: @ New York Islanders
This Matthew Schaefer kid might be pretty good. The Islanders have been surprisingly strong this season, sitting at 10-6-2 after missing the playoffs last year and jumping the draft order to select Schaefer overall. While the team's ceiling is pretty limited, they do have an all-star goaltender in net who goes by the name of Ilya Sorokin. If he regains that elite form, this Islanders team could make enough noise to stand out in a muddled Eastern Conference. The Blues will have their work cut out for them in all three of these games, even if the opposition doesn't look too intimidating on paper.