Blues at Wild Preview: Breathing room

At one point during the second period of last night’s Blues/Wild game, I had the realization that no one really wants the last playoff spot in the West Division. It’s understandable. Who wants to see the Vegas Golden Knights or the Colorado Avalanche in the post-season? Vegas is on a ten game win streak right now and has put a sizable amount of space between themselves and the Avs. Colorado has one of the fastest teams in the league with high powered scoring. Why would you want to play either of those?

Somewhere along the way, the Blues remembered that they beat the Avs twice in a row, and did so the second time without two of their top defensemen in the line-up. I like to think this epiphany happened a split second before Mike Hoffman scored his second power play goal of the night (the Blues are currently on an eight-game PPG streak).

Indeed.

It was nice to go from “please just make it to OT” to “holy crap, they scored with less than thirty seconds left!”

The Blues didn’t quit. They didn’t play a perfect game, but they didn’t give up. Helping out the Blues’ playoff cause was the San Jose Sharks’ 4-2 win over the Coyotes. The Blues are three points up on Arizona with three games in hand. The Yotes are idle tonight, so another win against the Wild - which would be the Blues’ fourth in five games so far - would place the Blues five points ahead of the Coyotes and pretty firmly in a playoff spot with eight games to go.