Blues Rout the Wild, Blackhawks Eye Playoff Berth

The St. Louis Blues (50-16-7) center T.J. Oshie brought his A game on Thursday night and helped his team defeat the Minnesota Wild (37-26-11), 5-1.

T.J. Oshie

Oshie had a productive night with his first NHL hat trick, scoring twice during the first period and then hitting his third goal in the third period. The player now hit 21 goals–a career high.

Brenden Morrow and Jaden Schwartz each scored for St. Louis while Ryan Miller had 27 saves. Since he was acquired by the Blues from the Buffalo Sabres on Feb. 28, Miller has gone 9-2-1 with a 2.03 goals-against average and a save percentage of .918.

For the Blues, they have now won three straight games and nine consecutive ones versus the Wild. St. Louis sits atop the league with its 107 points; it is also the Western Conference leader and is in competition with the Boston Bruins (50-17-6) for the Presidents’ Trophy.

St. Louis has a one-point lead over the Bruins as each team has nine games left.

As for the Wild, Zach Parise got the sole score while Darcy Kuemper had 19 saves. He now sits at 12-8-4, winning only twice over nine starts.

Minnesota has lost its last six of eight games (a second straight loss) but still holds a one-point advantage over the Phoenix Coyotes (36-26-12) for the Western Conference’s top spot in the Wild Card race. Ryan Suter has expressed frustration with his team’s penalty kill and power play efforts and said via the Minnesota Star Tribune, “Our special teams has been terrible. We have to figure it out or we’re not even going to make the playoffs.”

On Saturday, the Wild will look for a much-needed win when they play the Coyotes. Minnesota sits at 28/1 to win the 2014 Stanley Cup.

For the Blues, they’ll play the Dallas Stars (34-27-11) on Saturday and have 5/1 odds to win it all.

In other NHL news, the Chicago Blackhawks (42-17-15) lost their opportunity to clinch a playoff spot on Thursday with their 3-0 loss against the Bruins. This represented their second shutout over three games.

On Friday, they’ll look to regroup and get that coveted playoff berth–a sixth straight one–against the Ottawa Senators (29-29-14). The Blackhawks have a league-leading 239 goals but lately they have been a little cold, scoring two or less in 10 of their last 16 games but in the other six, they have four or great goals in five of them.

Going up against Ottawa may be a good thing as the team has given up 4.14 goals per game in its recent 3-8-3 run but this could change as its top goalie, Craig Anderson, could return on Friday. He has said he’s ready to go but coach Paul MacLean has been reluctant to give him the starting nod.

Anderson has been out since March 10 with an upper-body injury. In his last game against the Blackhawks on Oct. 29, a 6-5 loss, he had a season high for the number of goals allowed as Jonathan Toews scored three goals (two in the third period) and Andrew Shaw added two goals.

Jonathan Toews

With a win on Friday, the Blackhawks will try to take back a three-point advantage over the Colorado Avalanche (46-21-6), who have the night off but have played one less game overall. Chicago can also punch their playoff ticket with either one additional point or from a Nashville Predators’ defeat of Dallas on Friday.

Blackhawks forward Kris Versteeg said of his team’s current situation, “It’s tough to lose any games at this time of the season. Colorado has been playing well as of late. We just have to keep finding ways to get four points to finish up this road trip.”

Chicago has won three straight games over Ottawa and will make it a fourth one (-145, 5.5 o/u).