On Sunday, the Blues shut out the Minnesota Wild 4-0, extending their shutout streak to three games and their winning streak to a franchise best 10 games. The win brought their record to 14-2-1 in their last 17 games and 13-3-1 in their last 17 road games.
The Blues opened the scoring a little over five minutes into the 1st period on a power play goal by Vladimir Tarasenko. The real key to the play was a strong board battle by rookie Robert Thomas which allowed Ryan O’Reilly to sneak the puck out of the scrum and feed a wide open Tarasenko.
The Blues would double the lead with less than a minute left in the period with their 2nd power play goal of the period thanks to a very good shot by O’Reilly.
Vince Dunn would make it 3-0 less than eight minutes into the 2nd period, scoring as the trailer on a 3 on 1 break. Alex Pietrangelo showed great patience, waiting to feed Dunn.
Less than five minutes later, Brayden Schenn would bank a backhand in off a sliding Wild defender.
Tarasenko extended his point streak to 12 games with 11 goals and 11 assists. He has 7 goals and 6 assists in his last 5 games. Jordan Binnington earned his 4th shutout, making 31 saves.
Today the Blues continue their see-saw part of the schedule (alternating between home and away games for 9 games in a row) when they host the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Leafs were shutout by the Arizona Coyotes in their last game but have won 7 of their last 10. They have been road killers, going 19-8-2 on the road and in the last game of a six game road trip, earning three victories so far on the trip.
The Leafs are 4th in scoring and 9th in goals against which is why they are 6th in points percentage. Their power play is surprisingly only 14th while the penalty kill is ranked 9th.
The Leafs are led by Mitch Marner who has 69 points in 58 games. John Tavares leads the team in goals with 33 and has 63 points. Morgan Reilly is having a career year on defense with 57 points in 58 games. Auston Matthews has an impressive 53 points in 44 games while William Nylander has struggled with only 12 points in 30 games. Goaltending has been strong from Frederik Andersen who has a 92.3% save percentage.
Andersen has played below his career averages against the Blues posting a respectable 91.4% save percentage but down from his career 91.9%.
Interestingly, most of the skaters have struggled against the Blues. Marner has had the most success with 4 points in 5 games but only one goal. Matthews is still looking for his 1st point in now his 6th game against the Blues.
The Blues should watch out for Jake Muzzin who seems to play at another level against the Blues scoring at more than 3x his career goal rate and more than 50% above his points per game rate with 6 goals and 12 points in 18 games.
The Blues have dominated the Leafs recently, winning their last 5 matchups and going 12-2-2 in the last 16 meetings. They take a 3 games shutout into the game while Craig Berube sits on 99 wins as a coach.
Jaden Schwartz and Alex Pietrangelo have starred against the Leafs. Schwartz has 9 points in 8 games while Pietrangelo has 11 in 14 games and Tarasenko has 6 goals and 9 points in 10 games. Alexander Steen has been even better with 17 points in 14 games against his former club. Pat Maroon has yet to score against the Leafs in 11 games.
With the Blues back home, expect Alexander Steen to get back in the lineup, replacing Robby Fabbri. With Steen back in, expect the lines to be this:
Schenn - O'Reilly – Tarasenko
Schwartz - Bozak – Steen
Sanford - Sundqvist - Maroon
MacEachern - Barbashev - Thomas
Edmundson - Pietrangelo
Bouwmeester - Parayko
Dunn - Bortuzzo
Binnington
The Blues are starting to put themselves in a great spot as they now lead the 2nd wild card team, the Wild, by 7 points with a game in hand. They only trail the Predators by 6 points and have 3 games in hand.
The Blues schedule is insane as they are in stretch where they will travel before every game for 31 straight games.
NHL Champions for Charity
We’ve gotten some traction on the charity wager among the Central Division bloggers. One charity I’ll highlight is Meagan’s Walk
http://meaganswalk.com from your Blackhawk’s Blogger
Justin Lowe. Meagan’s Walk seeks to bring hope and awareness to cancerous brain tumors, the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in children and young people.
It’s a great day for hockey.
St Louis Blues Blogger • 
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