Blues at Maple Leafs
The St. Louis Blues skidded into the NHL's mandated five-day break with three straight losses to fall back to the pack in the ultra-competitive Central Division. The Blues look to alter their current tune while continuing their dominance against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday in the conclusion of their two-game season series.
St. Louis owns a 10-1-2 mark in its last 13 trips to the Air Canada Centre and has won three straight overall versus Toronto after Brayden Schenn recorded his first career four-point performance with four assists in a 6-4 triumph at Scottrade Center on Nov. 4. The 26-year-old Schenn joined fellow first-time All-Star Alex Pietrangelo in collecting an assist in back-to-back contests heading into the break, although the former's goal drought extended to 10 games in last Tuesday's 7-4 setback to Florida. Like the Blues, the Maple Leafs stumbled into the break with losses in back-to-back contests and five of seven overall. Tyler Bozak recorded his fourth multi-assist performance of the season by setting up a pair of goals in Wednesday's 4-3 setback versus Ottawa and tallied twice in the first encounter versus St. Louis.
TV: 7 p.m. ET, FS Midwest (St. Louis), TSN4 (Toronto)
ABOUT THE BLUES (26-17-3): The league-mandated break came at a good time for Jake Allen, who permitted five goals in back-to-back outings to run his losing skid to four straight games. The 27-year-old has been outplayed by Carter Hutton (8-3-1, 1.84 goals-against average, .940 save percentage), but overcame a shaky start in the first encounter to improve to 3-0-0 with a 2.00 GAA and .933 save percentage in his last three starts versus Toronto. Unlike Allen, Paul Stastny and fellow forward Vladimir Tarasenko went streaking into the break, with the former recording six points (three goals, three assists) in his last five games and the latter notching five (two goals, three assists) in his last three.
ABOUT THE MAPLE LEAFS (25-17-3): James van Riemsdyk entered the break on a high with goals in back-to-back games to pull into a tie with Auston Matthews for the team lead with 19. Matthews still holds the lead in points with 33 -- one more than fellow forward William Nylander, who has scored a goal and set up three others during his four-game point streak. Mitch Marner, who shares the team lead in assists with defenseman Morgan Rielly at 26, had two in the previous encounter versus St. Louis and also had one against the Senators.
OVERTIME
1. St. Louis F Alexander Steen has 16 points (six goals, 10 assists) in 12 career games against the Maple Leafs since being acquired from Toronto in 2008.
2. The Maple Leafs have thwarted 17 of 18 short-handed situations over the last six contests.
3. Blues D Colton Parayko has two goals and two assists in his last four games.