Avalanche at Blues
The Colorado Avalanche strengthened their playoff positioning by continuing their domination of one Central Division rival and will hope to keep the momentum going against a major nemesis. Riding an eight-game point streak (5-0-3), Colorado wraps up a two-game road trip with a visit to the St. Louis Blues on Thursday night.
The Avalanche beat up on the Minnesota Wild for the third straight time on Tuesday but they have lost all three meetings this season against St. Louis and have one win over the Blues in the last 10 meetings. "St. Louis is another building that hasn't been great to us, it's been tough to win in and we got to find a way to do it,” Colorado defenseman Tyson Barrie said. “So, we will be just as excited and ready to go for that one." The Blues nearly torpedoed their postseason hopes by dropping nine of 10 (1-7-2) but they rebounded with a pair of impressive wins to wrap up a four-game road trip and pull within three points of the Avalanche. “We could have ... buried ourselves almost to the point of not really having a chance,” St. Louis coach Mike Yeo said. “We still have got a lot of work to do, we’re still on the outside looking in, but we’re a little bit closer.”
TV: 8 p.m. ET, Altitude2 (Colorado), FS Midwest (St. Louis)
ABOUT THE AVALANCHE (37-24-8): Colorado has scored a total of five goals in three meetings versus the Blues in 2017-18 and has produced more than two goals once in the last 10 matchups against them. Nathan MacKinnon ran his point streak to nine games, scoring eight times in that span, with his 33rd goal against Minnesota, but he has been held off the scoresheet and is a minus-4 in two games against St. Louis this season. Avalanche goaltender Semyon Varlamov, who has appeared in 14 straight games, is 9-9-2 with a 2.37 goals-against average versus St. Louis and will be in net again as Jonathan Bernier continues to deal with a neck injury.
ABOUT THE BLUES (37-27-5): Jake Allen has been in net for the past three games and will start again Thursday after Carter Hutton was unable to practice Wednesday when his neck issue flared up. "We were expecting that Carter was gonna be able to practice today," Yeo said. "(He) woke up this morning and was starting to have some troubles again. So he'll have an appointment ... and we'll see what we find from that." Defenseman Joel Edmundson could be back in the lineup since fracturing his forearm against Colorado on Feb. 8. Rookie forward J.T. Compher ended a 14-game point drought by scoring twice Tuesday night, his first goals in the last 17 games.
OVERTIME
1. The Blues are 1-for-25 on the power play over the past eight games.
2. MacKinnon has amassed 17 points during his nine game streak.
3. Blues F Ivan Barbashev has goals in three of the last four games and is coming off back-to-back two-point contests.