Blues vs Red Wings Preview and Pick
The second half of the NHL season continues tonight with a matchup between two longtime rivals – the St. Louis Blues and the Detroit Red Wings.
Detroit moved to the Eastern Conference in the NHL realignment, but that does not take away from the fierce rivalry between these two clubs.
The Red Wings enter tonight’s game at home with a record of 21-17-10. Detroit has 52 points and is in sixth place in the Atlantic division.
St. Louis has played well all season and has an overall record of 32-10-5. The Blues are in second place in the Central division with 69 points trailing the Chicago Blackhawks by six points. St. Louis has lost its last two games.
The Red Wings have been riddled with injuries all season, but could win their second straight at home tonight with a win. This is the first meeting of the season between the two teams.
Detroit has played terribly at home with a record of 7-10-7 and won for only the second time in their past nine games in Joe Louis Arena in a 3-2 shootout win over the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday.
Detroit’s locker room has looked more like an infirmary and tonight will be no exception, as they will have up to eight players out injured, including Daniel Alfredsson and Pavel Datsyuk.
The schedule will not help matters for Detroit as they face St. Louis and arch rivals the Chicago Blackhawks in the span of just three days.
For the past 31 years, the Blues, Blackhawks and Red Wings were in the same division prior to the realignment. The three teams have the fiercest rivalries between them in all of hockey.
Last season, the Red Wings were 2-2-1 versus St. Louis, however two losses were at home in Joe Louis Arena.
Jimmy Howard has a record at home versus St. Louis of 7-2-1 with a goals against average of 1.91. However, this season at home Howard is just 3-5-7 with a GAA of 2.63.
Howard looks to be coming around of late winning two of his past three games and stopping a total of 121 shots.
St. Louis has come up short of late losing three of the past four games following a winning streak of seven games.
The Blues have not scored over two goals in any of their last four games and have given up the first goal of the game in their past three defeats, including a 3-2 loss on Saturday to Anaheim.
St. Louis got a boost with the return of Alexander Steen on Saturday after he missed 11 games because of a concussion. He is still the leader in goals for the team with 24. However, he has scored only 4 in 27 games in his career against Detroit.
Records and how the teams have played of late are all thrown out when these two clubs face off. The matchup will be very physical and low scoring.
I like the Red Wings 1-0.
