The Nashville Predators will look to snap a three-game skid tonight against the St. Louis Blues, who are currently five points outside a wildcard spot and likely to be desperate for a win.
Their recent skid hasn’t helped the Preds, but it hasn’t hurt them too badly either–none of the teams just behind them in the standings have gone on a run to counter it, with the exception of the Vegas Golden Knights in a weak Pacific. (The Golden Knights leapfrogged the Los Angeles Kings for a divisional spot without affecting the wildcard positioning.)
The Blues, meanwhile, haven’t been having the best of seasons, but they’ve been able to get enough wins in spite of that to stay in the conversation, and will be a tough opponent tonight. They’ve also recently shown some improving trends in their play that, if not a fluke, will make this game even harder than it looks likely to be.
They’ve gotten great goaltending, not only from everyone’s least favorite goalie Jordan Binnington but also from backup Joel Hofer. The two have combined to compensate for bad team defense, both at 5v5 and on the penalty kill, and have kept the Blues in almost any game they’ve played. The defense is, however, bad; opponents have had an easy time getting high-quality chances from the netfront, and it’d be great to see the Preds do the same tonight.
The offense isn’t much better, and here the Blues’ luck and skill hasn’t been as good. On balance, they’ve struggled to score, due in part to a hard time getting to dangerous areas of the ice or taking shots from, well, more or less anywhere–though they do have a league-third 11 shorthanded goals despite not taking that many penalties.
Robert Thomas is the points leader with 74 and assists leader with 51, and they have five 20-goal scorers (Pavel Buchnevich and Jake Neighbours with 26, Jordan Kyrou and Brandon Saad with 25, and Thomas with 23), but a lot of the offense has gone through Thomas. Kyrou and Torey Krug are tied for second in assists with 33. Krug and Justin Faulk have been significant play-drivers from the blueline, with Faulk probably deserving more points than he’s gotten, but on balance things haven’t gone the way the Blues would want them to.
Tonight’s game airs at 7PM Central on ESPN+ and Hulu, if you’ve got them. If you don’t, it’s still airing there, but you can also catch the radio call on 102.5 The Game.
Statistics from naturalstattrick.com. Additional background from hockeyviz.com.