Gameday - Blues

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

6:00 p.m. MST

Scottrade Centre

Calgary @ St Louis
Sportsnet West

• The Flames travel to St Louis tonight to take on the Blues.
• St Louis has been coming on as of late and have actually been 6-1-1 in their last 8 games.
• The Blues are on a four game home winning streak and have beaten some impressive teams in the process (Nashville, Minnesota, and Vancouver).
• The Flames have won their last four games, including the most recent one on the road in Edmonton, and the previous one in a shootout at the Saddledome over the Wild.
• Calgary is 7-0-1 in their last 8 games against St Louis, the one loss in a shootout in St Louis at the end of January last year.
• At 8-15-8 the Flames are tied with the Florida Panthers for the fewest road wins by a team so far this season.
• Manny Legace is injured for the Blues, so Curtis Sanford is expected to get the start again tonight. Sanford is 2-1-1 in filling in for Legace since he went down two weeks ago.
• Miikka Kiprusoff will be tending the twine for Calgary tonight and looked pretty good against the Wild and Oilers last week, but we'll just have to see how his defence plays in front of him on the road.
• One thing going for the Flames this time is that Sanford is about as brutal in the shootout as Kipper is.
• The leaders for the Blues are Lee Stempniak (20g), Doug Weight (36a, 44p), Jamal Mayers (70 pim), and Christian Backman and Barret Jackman (both at +20).

I'm really skeptical about this game, as the Blues have turned into a dangerous team of hard working young guys. Stempniak has been known to take the game over for himself from time to time, while disappearing completely on other occasions (as is typical of a lot of players early in their careers)...

I'm actually going to give the home team the benefit of the doubt on this one, and I hope our boys prove me wrong, but I think the Blues take it 3-2 in overtime...

Goals by Iginla and Huselius for the good guys, Stempniak (2) and Petr Cajanek for the home team...