TEAM SNAPSHOTS
BLUES After a difficult trip out East, the St. Louis Blues will be eager to hear the home crowd at Enterprise Center this week.
Leaving Chicago with a shutout victory in hand, the team went 0-2-1 against the Rangers, Islanders and Devils to finish their stretch of eight games out of nine on the road.
The Blues struggled to get shots through against the Rangers and Islanders, with 23 and 24 shots blocked by opposing skaters in the two matchups, respectively. In New Jersey, the early puck drop on a back-to-back against a young, fast Devils team made the Blues work for every inch. Clawing back from a 2-0 deficit in the third period to force overtime, the Blues came away with just one point when Devils forward Dougie Hamilton scored the game winner.
While the road trip did not end as they would have hoped, the Blues still have positive takeaways as they continue into the stretch run. Both Jordan Binnington and Ville Husso turned in solid performances on the road, and the Blues' 6-2-2 record over the last 10 games is second-best in the division.
The pair of home games this week are a good opportunity to reset the Blues' momentum. Tuesday night, they take on a Senators team who proved a favorable matchup in their last showdown. Thursday night, they have the chance to avenge Wednesday's loss when they host the Rangers for a rematch.
Tuesday night's game will be No. 56 on the season, matching the shortened 2020-21 season total. Heading into this point, the Blues are 32-16-7 with 71 points, already improved over their 27-20-9 (63 points) regular season finish last year with a game to spare.
SENATORS The Ottawa Senators are also stinging from a tough road loss as they travel to St. Louis. On Sunday night, Ottawa and Vegas were tied 1-1 late in the third period as Ottawa geared up for a crucial penalty kill with 45 seconds to go.
Six seconds before the regulation buzzer sounded, Golden Knights star Jack Eichel received the puck in the left circle, snapped a wrister, and ended the game.
It was an outstanding goalie battle in Vegas. Anton Forsberg made 40 saves for the Senators despite the loss, and Robin Lehner stopped 39 out of 40 shots for Vegas to secure the win.
The Senators will look to bounce back from the heartbreaker in Vegas, finishing their five-game road trip in St. Louis before settling in for five games at home. They are winless on the current road trip, losing in Tampa Bay, Florida and Arizona before falling to the Golden Knights.
Ottawa's season record now sits at 19-31-5, worth 43 points and seventh place in the Eastern Conference's Atlantic Division.
HEAD-TO-HEAD The Blues dominated the Senators in the Feb. 15 matchup in Ottawa. The line of Pavel Buchnevich, Vladimir Tarasenko and Robert Thomas excelled, netting three goals and six assists in total. The Blues have a 7-2-1 record against the Senators over their last 10 battles.
The Blues have not hosted the Senators since Jan. 19, 2019, winning 3-2.
PLAYERS TO WATCH
BLUES Robert Thomas had one of the best games of his season in Ottawa earlier this year, recording a goal and two assists in his second three-point effort on the season. Thomas leads the Blues with a career-best 34 assists this season.
SENATORS St. Louis native Brady Tkachuk will play his first game in his hometown in over three years, and just the second of his young career. Tkachuk leads the Senators with 39 points on the season.
BLUE NOTES
The Blues have won six of their last seven games against the Senators... The Blues rank seventh in the NHL with 40 points on home ice this season, and fourth with 3.85 goals-per-home-game average... Ryan O'Reilly leads the League with 3,260 faceoff wins (56.8 percent) since the start of the 2018-19 season.
After struggling through a three-game winless swing through metropolitan New York City, the St. Louis Blues will try to reestablish their team game while hosting the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday.
The Blues were on the road for most of a three-week span. They finished that stretch by losing 5-3 to the New York Rangers on Wednesday, 2-1 to the New York Islanders on Saturday and 3-2 in overtime to the New Jersey Devils on Sunday.
"Obviously we want to get points, we need the points right now with how tight the West is." Blues captain Ryan O'Reilly said. "But we did not play the way we needed to play. And that's something we gotta figure out inside of our room right now."
They return home, where they are 19-6-2, to play four of their next five games. That stretch starts against the Senators, who have lost five consecutive games.
"It's been a long couple weeks in a row," Blues coach Craig Berube said. "Now we get home for a bit and we gotta get points."
After battling injuries much of the season, the Blues were only missing third-pair defenseman Marco Scandella (lower body) as the road trip ended. With winger David Perron back from his one-game absence due to illness, the Blues are back at full strength at forward and capable of rolling three scoring lines.
"When you watch us play, we're a little too individual right now," O'Reilly said. "We're not helping each other out enough and setting each other up, and just working for each other. We're just very disconnected. Everyone feels it. Everyone can see it. We have to change. It's very disappointing. We have to adjust and move on. And I'm confident we will."
Jordan Binnington has allowed just three goals in his last three starts, providing a strong 1-2 combination in goal with Ville Husso.
The Senators are coming off a 2-1 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday in the third stop of a four-game road swing. Ottawa goaltender Anton Forsberg made 40 saves and the Senators outshot Vegas 16-10 in the third period.
But they came away without points after a last-minute tripping call on Senators defenseman Thomas Chabot led to Jack Eichel's power-play goal with 5.2 seconds remaining.
"I don't know if that's a penalty or not, I haven't looked at it, but that's a tough way to lose," Senators coach D.J. Smith said. "The way we lose tonight, we feel terrible. It hurts but at the end of the day, we know where we are at and there were a lot of good things.
"That's the way we have to play. On the second end of a back-to-back, I didn't dislike anyone's game. Everyone played hard. We easily could have got a win as well."
It was the Senators' sixth consecutive defeat against the Golden Knights.
"For that effort, nine out of 10 times you are going to win that game," said Ottawa's Brady Tkachuk, who scored the team's lone goal in the second period. "That's just the one time where it didn't go our way."
Ottawa goalie Matt Murray was placed on injured reserve before Sunday's game.
PROJECTED LINEUP
Forwards
Barbashev - O'Reilly - Perron
Kyrou - Thomas - Tarasenko
Saad - Schenn - Buchnevich
MacEachern - Bozak - Toropchenko
Defense
Mikkola - Parayko
Krug - Faulk
Walman - Bortuzzo
Goalie
Binnington
