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Posted at 12:15 PM EST.

8:05 PM EST. Regulation only. This line seems awfully high on the Blue Notes considering that Colorado is not only ahead of the Blues in the standings but the Avs are one of the hottest teams in the NHL. It may surprise you to learn that Colorado has won two straight and has picked up points in eight straight games with five victories and three OT losses. The Avs are coming off a 5-1 victory in Minnesota and have outscored its last two opponents by a count of 10-3 while the Blues have three lousy victories over their last 10 games. 

You see, the results are good for the Avalanche but the under the hood numbers scream out that the Avs are the worst team among the seven teams fighting for three playoff spots. Colorado’s shooting percentage is off the charts during their consecutive games point streak and a correction to the bad is coming. In Score and Venue Adjusted Corsi For % over the past five weeks, Colorado ranks 29th in the league, ahead of only Buffalo and the New York Rangers. They are winning a lot of games without the puck these days. Defensively it’s even worse, as Colorado ranks 29th over the past five weeks in 5-on-5 Score and Venue Adjusted Corsi Against/60. That puts them ahead of only the Rangers and Senators over that span. In xGF/60 and xGA/60 over the past five weeks during 5-on-5 play, Colorado ranks 29th and 25th respectively. We cannot overstate how fortunate the Avalanche have been recently and how fortunate they are to be in a playoff spot right now.

With the clock running out on their playoff hopes, the Blues managed to win two of three games on their California trip, turning what had the potential to be a trip to oblivion into a new life. After beating Los Angeles 7-2 and the Ducks 4-2, the Blue return home to play the team they are trying to catch. Thus, this game is absolutely its biggest of the season and we can’t imagine for a second that the Blue Notes will be flat coming off a West Coast trip. Not only did the four points they earned on their three-game California trip put them squarely back in the Western Conference Wild-Card race, it showed that they still could play the way they did at the start of the season, back when they had the best record in the league.

The Blues have new life and the timing for it couldn’t have come at a better time. For 13 games defenseman Joel Edmundson has been sidelined with a broken forearm but all things point to him returning for this one. It’s no coincidence that the Blues struggled without Edmundson, as he’s a big physical presence, that’s difficult to play against. St. Louis Blues hockey is physical, intense and puck control and that’s what we expect to see tonight. The Blues rank 9 th over the past five weeks in Corsi Against/60 during 5-on-5 play without Edmundson. With him, they ranked 4th. They also ranked 13th in Corsi For % over that same five-week span but ranked higher for most of the year before they lost their way for a bit. The Blue Notes played with some spark in California and may have found their mojo there. Lastly, the Blues will enter this one highly confident against Colorado, as they beat the Avs 6-1 already this year at Scottrade and beat them twice in Colorado after that 6-1 blasting. Colorado has some of the ugliest road metrics in the league and this one is a simple case of a very good team at home against a very lucky team that is awful on the road. 

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