The Nashville Predators head west to face the St. Louis Blues tonight.
The Blues are, on balance, having a worse season than the Preds. While they’re getting great offensive performances from the likes of Jordan Kyrou and Rob Thomas, they’ve struggled at both ends of the ice and have the standings position to reflect that.
Kyrou leads the team with 20 goals and 42 points, while Thomas’s 29 assists are the most—he adds 11 goals for a solid all-around performance. Pavel Buchnevich (15G/22A) and Brayden Schenn (10G/23A) are also regular offensive contributors. The Blues don’t have much by way of regular defensive contributors, though, with part-timer Nikita Alexandrov and fourth-liner Josh Leivo the only players noticeably above water in expected goal share.
The Blues’ offense has struggled at both even strength and on the power play, with their defense struggling at even strength and on the penalty kill. Some sharp finishing has helped them maintain a decent PP conversion rate in spite of the lackluster shot metrics, but the much-used Jordan Binnington has been deeply uninspiring in goal. He has a sv% on the season of .894, while backup Thomas Greiss is turning in a much better .912 and almost singlehandedly keeping the Blues in “yeah, they don’t allow that many goals” territory.
Ryan O’Reilly, Vladimir Tarasenko, Torey Krug, and Robert Bortuzzo are among the Blues’ injured. Any of them could rejoin the team today, by the NHL IR rules, but I have not yet heard that any of them will.
How to Watch
The game airs at 7PM Central/8PM Eastern on Bally Sports South and 102.5 The Game.