St. Louis Blues Host Los Angeles Kings, Look for Fourth Straight Win
The St. Louis Blues will look to continue one of their best runs of the season as they host the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday.
The St. Louis Blues will host the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday at Scottrade Center, marking the Western Conference foes’ third meeting of the season. The Blues-Kings rivalry hasn’t been a high-scoring one by any stretch of the imagination in 2o15-16; each team has won a game, but the Kings are outscoring the Blues 4-2 through the two meetings.
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The Blues will be looking for their fourth straight win on Thursday, a streak that would tie a season-high that was last achieved from October 13-18. It’s likely no coincidence that the previous streak came with Jaden Schwartz in the lineup, as the Blues will now be looking to go 4-0 since the electric two-way forward returned to the lineup. The Blues are now 59-21-8 with Schwartz in the lineup over the past two seasons, compared to 26-20-10 without him, so it’s safe to say that he provides a winning edge to the club.
The Blues will be contending with a Kings team that’s in first place in the Pacific Division, though they have a lesser point total than the top three teams in the Central, where the Blues currently sit in third. At 33-20-3, the Kings have 69 points and are just narrowly ahead of an Anaheim Ducks team that started off terribly slow before catching fire in late December.
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It’d make lots of sense for Ken Hitchcock to stick with the lineup that has earned the team four straight wins, and it’s highly likely that he’ll do so. If he does choose to shake things up, the Kings’ big, bruising lineup would be a good one against which to insert 6-foot-3, 208-pound Magnus Paajarvi in place of 6-foot, 200-pound Scottie Upshall for a slight size advantage.
Otherwise, there aren’t too many variables, as Dmitrij Jaskin‘s Wednesday demotion limited the Blues’ flexibility in terms of forward depth, and Hitchcock doesn’t appear motivated to give Peter Harrold a turn in place of any of his current top six defensemen. Brian Elliott has started the past 15 games in net with Jake Allen injured, so there hasn’t been any drama there for a long while, either.
Next: Breaking Down All the Blues' Injuries Through 2015-16
Here’s what the lineup figures to look like against Los Angeles:
Jaden Schwartz–Jori Lehtera-Vladmir Tarasenko
Patrik Berglund-Alexander Steen-David Backes
Robby Fabbri–Paul Stastny–Troy Brouwer
Scottie Upshall–Kyle Brodziak–Ryan Reaves
Jay Bouwmeester–Kevin Shattenkirk
Carl Gunnarsson–Colton Parayko