Blues at Avalanche Preview: The Central’s two best teams face off again

The Blues and the Avalanche have already seen each other twice this season. They’re 2-0 against Colorado, and have won six straight against the Avalanche going back to last season. If there was a better team for the Blues to go on a win streak against, they’re hard to think of.

Colorado is second in the Central Division and mainly behind the strength of All-Star captain Nathan McKinnon. His 24 goals and 58 points lead the team and are good for fourth and fifth in the league, respectively. Their goaltending has also been outstanding with Pavel Francouz leading the charge. He has an 11-3-0 record and a .927 save percentage to go along with it.

Unfortunately for the Avalanche, the Dallas Stars caught them in points yesterday. The Avs have been slumping as of late - they’re coming off of a 7-4 loss to the Winnipeg Jets on New Years Eve. They’re 0-2-1 in their last three and have lost four of their last six games in regulation with an extra loss coming in a shootout. The Avs’ recent stretch of poor play coupled with the Blues just-concluded eight game win streak has opened up a gulf in the Central Division of eight points that could just as easily be ten points after tonight’s game.

The Blues are starting the new year with just nine regulation losses in 41 games played, and only three of those are against Central Division opponents. Those staggering numbers are part of a much bigger 2019. A hundred and twenty-three points in a calendar year is nothing to sneeze at.

As far as Blues fans are concerned those wins can just keep on rolling into 2020.