St. Louis Blues hunt for a way get to get pucks through traffic in the Big Apple.

St. Louis Blues hit the road again starting in Brooklyn tonight for a tilt against the Islanders. With Robert Bortuzzo sitting because of injury, the Blues have called up the AHL’s leading point scorer, Brad Hunt of the Chicago Wolves to fill in on defense. Brad Hunt is leading the AHL right now with 29 points over 23 games played to date.

Hopefully Hunt will have an easier time getting to the arena in Brooklyn than the Blues did this morning. As Jeremy Rutherford reported earlier today, the Blues’ morning skate in Brooklyn was canceled because The Note got stuck in rush hour traffic in New York City. Traffic is normally bad in NYC but has suddenly grown worse since Trump’s election and the roads around his “Eagle’s Nest” being shut down for security.

All that being said, we won’t know about the Blues line up tonight until Hitchcock’s 4:30 meeting with the press. Stay tuned around that time for an update to this post.

The Blues come into tonight’s game with a 15-7-4 record that places them 2nd in both the Western Conference and the Central Division. St. Louis has won 8 of their last 10 with one of those losses coming in overtime against the Jets. While the Blues have seen quite a bit of success at home, their road record has been abysmal. They are 3-6-1 on the road so far this season.

The Islanders are currently tied with the Maple Leafs for last place in the Eastern Conference with a record of 10-10-5. They are 5-3-2 in their last ten games and 8-4-4 so far at home this season. The Islanders are starting Greiss between the pipes tonight while Allen is the assumed starter for the Blues.

Turning our attention to the fancy stats, the Blues are currently sitting third in corsi for with 53%. The only two teams ahead of them are the Kings and the Bruins. The Islanders are sitting near the bottom of the league in corsi for with only 46%. But when it comes to goal scoring the Blues are severely lacking. The Note is near the bottom of the list in goals for with only 48%. In other words, the Blues are giving up more goals than they are scoring at 5v5. Conversely the Islanders are in the top half of the league in goals for, and their PDO is right around 100.

The Blues continue to lag in 5v5 ice time because of the penalties they have been taking and that definitely has an impact on their stats and their overall play on the ice. They are also at the bottom of the league in PDO which could indicate a turn around for the team if only they stop taking penalties. While the Islanders might be lacking in corsi and suffering in the standings, they are not to be trifled with. This will not be an easy 2 points for the Blues tonight. However, if the team keeps out of the penalty box maybe tonight’s game will be a step in the right direction.

UPDATE

JR from the Post-Distpatch just posted the line ups for tonights game.

The Tarasenko Scholarship is alive and well.

Forwards

Jaden Schwartz-Paul Stastny-Alexander Steen

Robby Fabbri-Jori Lehtera-Vladimir Tarasenko

David Perron-Patrik Berglund-Dmitrij Jaskin

Scottie Upshall-Kyle Brodziak-Ryan Reaves

Defensemen

Jay Bouwmeester-Alex Pietrangelo

Carl Gunnarsson-Kevin Shattenkirk

Joel Edmundson-Colton Parayko