The Stats
| St. Louis Blues | Nashville Predators | |||
| Record | 41-14-6 | 2nd | 26-26-10 | 25th |
| GF/Game | 3.23 | 2nd | 2.42 | 23rd |
| GA/Game | 2.26 | 3rd | 2.92 | 22nd |
| 5-on-5 Close SF/60 | 28.7 | 21st | 29.8 | 14th |
| 5-on-5 Close SA/60 | 27.4 | 5th | 27.3 | 4th |
| Fenwick Close | 52.40 | 8th | 50.70 | 14th |
| 5-on-5 Close Save % | .920 | 21st | .906 | 29th |
| 5-on-4 GF/60 | 7.5 | 4th | 6.7 | 10th |
| # of PP’s/Gm | 3.57 | 5th | 3.06 | 27th |
| 4-on-5 GA/60 | 4.5 | 4th | 7.1 | 25th |
| # of PK’s/Gm | 3.52 | 22nd | 3.06 | 4th |
St. Louis Blues
More on tonight’s opponent
More on tonight’s opponent
St. Louis is one of those scary-good teams with legitimate Stanley Cup aspirations, leading the NHL with a +63 Goal Differential. They made one of the biggest moves on the trade market this week by acquiring goaltender Ryan Miller from the Buffalo Sabres. While Miller will have a bit of an adjustment playing behind one of the best teams in the league rather than the worst, over the final quarter of the season the Blues will be focused on fine-tuning things for when the playoffs begin in April.
The main guy to keep an eye on tonight is winger Alex Steen, who burst onto the scene with a ridiculous goal-scoring run early in the season, but lost almost a month due to injury recently. Back in action, he’s once again piling up the points, with a goal and an assist Tuesday night against Tampa Bay.
So far this season, the Predators are 0-2-1 against St. Louis, with the most recent contest being a 4-3 shootout loss on February 1st.
Nashville Predators
The post-David Legwand era begins tonight, with the spotlight clearly shining on one player in particular:
Legwand’s absence opens up (for now) an opportunity for Colin Wilson to play a featured role at center for the foreseeable future, basically an open audition for such a job on the 2014-15 edition of the Predators. By now you should be familiar with my take on Wilson’s game – I don’t see him as a full-time center, and think the team should resign themselves to the not-so-awful realization that he’s a decent 2nd-tier winger who can support more dynamic linemates.
The trick, of course, is getting those linemates for Willy to feed the puck to, but that’s a story for this summer. Tonight, it’s the Colin Wilson show. Let’s just hope it goes better than Faramir’s attempt to impress his dad, right?