Blues At Predators Recap: Blues Win 1-0, Extend Winning Streak To Five Games

Pekka Rinne deserves a fruit basket. He stopped 25 of 26 Blues shots tonight, and all he got was a lousy regulation loss. The Predators didn't even have enough gas out on the ice tonight to play spoiler; they just stood there, got off the occasional shot on Brian Elliott (who now ranks fifth all time on the Blues' shut-out list, so congrats!) and then went back to the bench. Elliott only had to stop 15 shots on his birthday, and most of them were softies that he had no problem with. Guess the Preds didn't want to spoil his night.

Alex Steen got the only goal of the game, a slapshot that was his first goal in eight games. That, and a penalty to Shea Weber back in the first, were the only things of note in the entire game. The Blues finish their season series against the Preds with a 3-1-0 record, which isn't half bad considering the occasional challenges the Predators present St. Louis with.

Tonight the Blues played Preds style team hockey, and won. They're now six points up on ninth place Phoenix, and since the Wild lost to the Blackhawks tonight (also by the score of 1-0), the Blues are in 6th place and tied with them at 44 points. I don't care how dull the wins might be, the Blues are winning games when they need to and winning them how they need to: with great defense limiting quality shots on net. If they can keep this up, they're going to be another pain in the first round.

The Blues have a chance now to really leapfrog the Minnesota Wild on Thursday, and they're off to Minny to play them one last time.