After last night’s late game heroics to beat the Oilers in overtime, the Red Wings head to St. Louis to face the long-time rival Blues. In the previous meetings between these two teams, the Red Wings are 3-1-0 including a 7-3 win and a 5-2 win. Most recently, the Wings beat the Blues 4-3 in OT, thanks to 3 assists from Jiri Hudler and the game winner by Darren Helm.
Tonight, the Red Wings face a completely different St. Louis team than the last time they played. Since that Helm OT winning game, the Blues have traded away former 1st round pick Erik Johnson, Eric Brewer, Brad Boyes, Brad Winchester, Jay McClement and Vladimir Sobotka, Alex Steen and Barret Jackman have all gone to the injured list for the Blues. St. Louis has struggled with the same thing that the Red Wings did last year, so it’s understandable to see how their season has fallen apart a bit.
However, they are 10 points out with 14 games to go and carry a 3 game win streak into tonight’s contest. The Blues most recently knocked off the Canadiens by a 4-1 score and the addition of Chris Stewart and Kevin Shattenkirk has seemed to help this team (Stewart has 9 goals, 3 assists; Shattenkirk with 5 assists).
St. Louis Game Time is your SB Nation Blues’ blog.
- Not sure who will be starting in net tonight. Jimmy Howard played really well last night so maybe Babcock uses that to his advantage tonight over MacDonald. After today’s game, the Wings don’t play again until Wednesday so one would think there’d be plenty of rest time after a back-to-back.
- The Blues allow the fourth fewest shots against per game so the Wings will need to work to get their shots and with a struggling offense who knows what will happen.
- St. Louis let Ty Conklin go during the season. I think a lot of the Wings fans were fan of Conklin during his brief stay in Motown.
- Detroit will need to keep David “Inglourious” Backes in check, as well as Chris Stewart. Backes leads the team in points and Stewart has 9 goals and 3 assists in 12 games, since coming over from Colorado in exchange for Erik Johnson.
- For discussion: Gary Bettman got a 5-year extension. What the hell?
- Score Prediction: 3-2 Detroit. The Wings have been struggling in the goal department of late and I’m a little hesitant to say that will change…but what do I know? I still only have one point.
- Player of the Game Prediction: Darren Helm.
