Rematch of Sunday's 3-2 Blues win continues to put emphasis on St. Louis to keep winning to due their part in staying in wild card race; Blues to play same lineup, including Hofer in goal; top line continues to sizzle, but St. Louis needs more balance
ST. LOUIS – The St. Louis Blues can’t control what happens outside of their games here down the stretch, but what they can do is continue down the path of playing good hockey and letting the chips fall where they may.
And a repeat performance on Tuesday when they face the Colorado Avalanche again, playing the first of six remaining games left in this season – four of which are at home – in a rematch with the Avalanche, who can clinch the top seed in the Western Conference and Presidents’ Trophy in the right scenarios with a win.
The Blues (33-31-12) downed the Avs (50-16-10) 3-2 on Sunday in Denver and played well in doing so, with their top line of Robert Thomas, Dylan Holloway and Jimmy Snuggerud accounting for all three goals, with Thomas scoring his first NHL hat trick.
“Our top line can dominate against anyone,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. “It was nice to see that, especially on the road in big moments.
“The defense that we’ve been playing here, and it’s longer than you think. Since Nov. 1, we’re sixth in goals-against (2.48). Since Jan. 1, we’re like second (actually first, 2.66). When you have such a bleak start to the goals-against department, it kind of hurts your overall evaluation. But we hadn’t seen the D-zone that we’ve consistently seen here lately where we’re limiting Grade A’s and we’re taking away time and space against one of the teams that we thought was an elite O-zone team. And they’re an elite O-zone team. Yeah, we gave up more chances than we have been, but we still limited them. What we’ve been doing is working against the best, better than what we’ve been doing.”
Joel Hofer, who will make his third straight start after making 26 saves on Sunday, has been at the forefront it a lot of it. He’s No. 1 since Nov. 1 with a .919 save percentage and is No. 11 in goals saved above expected (11.4).
“He’s gone, and not that October’s that bad, but since Jan. 1, he’s saved more goals above expected than any other goalie in the league. It’s remarkable what he’s doing.”
As for Jordan Binnington, who last played in a 2-1 overtime loss to the Los Angeles Kings last Wednesday, Montgomery has called him a great teammate now that Hofer has had the bulk of the work as of late.
“He gets it because if anyone’s an incredible team player on our team, Jordan Binnington is,” Montgomery said. “And he wants to be in nets, there’s no doubt about it, but he has always respected his role, not only when he was No. 1 goalie, but also now that they’re more partners in the crease that he’s a mentor to helping Hofer mentally, especially how to handle games like this. It’s a partnership that’s really been incredible. Something I’ve said before, we like that kind of pushing each other and helping each other to be throughout our lineup.”
- - -
The top line is obviously red hot, as hot as any line in hockey with a combined 67 points and plus-65 rating since the Olympic break, but what about the rest of the lineup?
There just hasn’t been that competitive balance there, something the Blues are really evaluating down the stretch.
“To have more attack mindset, taking pucks to hard areas,” Montgomery said. “We felt like … [Jonathan] Drouin had two breakaways, but we felt like we could have had more breakaways if we decided to take the puck to the far post (Sunday). Maybe they’re partial breakaways, but they’re just hard for goalies and everyone to defend.”
- - -
Blues Projected Lineup:
Dylan Holloway-Robert Thomas-Jimmy Snuggerud
Jonathan Drouin-Dalibor Dvorsky-Jordan Kyrou
Jake Neighbours-Pius Suter-Jonatan Berggren
Alexey Toropchenko-Jack Finley-Pavel Buchnevich
Philip Broberg-Logan Mailloux
Theo Lindstein-Colton Parayko
Cam Fowler-Tyler Tucker
Joel Hofer will start in goal; Jordan Binnington will be the backup.
Healthy scratches include Justin Holl, Nathan Walker, Matthew Kessel, Oskar Sundqvist and Otto Stenberg. The Blues report no injuries.
- - -
Avalanche Projected Lineup:
Artturi Lehkonen-Nathan MacKinnon-Martin Necas
Gabriel Landeskog-Brock Nelson-Valeri Nichushkin
Nicolas Roy-Nazem Kadri-Logan O’Connor
Ross Colton-Jack Drury-Parker Kelly
Devon Toews-Sam Malinski
Brett Kulak-Josh Manson
Nick Blankenburg-Brent Burns
Scott Wedgewood will start in goal; Mackenzie Blackwood will be the backup.
The Avalanche have no healthy scratches. Cale Makar (upper body), Nicolas Roy (upper body) and Valeri Nichushkin (lower body) are out.
For action-packed issues, access to the entire magazine archive and a free issue, subscribe to The Hockey News at THN.com/free. Get the latest news and trending stories by subscribing to our newsletter here. And share your thoughts by commenting below the article on THN.com or creating your own post in our community forum.