Blues at Golden Knights Preview: Series wrap up

The Blues have now officially punched their post-season card 44 times in their team’s history, more than any non-Original Six team. They’re headed there for the 9th time in ten years... and of course NHL.com has to jinx the whole damn thing.

I kid. I hope.

None of us have ESP, so who knows what will happen after the regular season winds down and the postseason begins. The Blues have four more games to play: tonight’s game, Monday’s re-scheduled game against the Los Angeles Kings, and Wednesday and Thursday night against the Minnesota Wild. They’ll want to fine tune things, get injured players healthy, and rest up the big guns.

What they won’t want to do is take the foot off of the gas.

They did that last night during the third (!) period, and wound up losing in overtime for the second game in a row. It’s not often you get a clunker of a performance like that from Robin Lehner, so it’s unfortunate that the Blues couldn’t capitalize. They’re not going to get a clunker from Marc-Andre Fleury tonight if he starts, so if the Blues want to set the tone for their upcoming first round series that will be more than likely against the Golden Knights, they’re going to have to press.

They have points in eight straight games, so it’s safe to say that there’s momentum on the Blues’ side. They’re 2-3-2 against Vegas this season, which considering the powerhouse that the Golden Knights have been all season, isn’t bad. A win tonight could knock the Blues up into wild card status if the two teams do wind up meeting in the first round. Of course, if you look at it from Vegas’ perspective, the Golden Knights are 5-1-1 against the Blues, so that’s a whole different narrative.

Whatever.

We all know that the playoffs can head in very unexpected directions, and the Blues have some regular season business to deal with first. Wrap it up, boys, and finish strong. In a couple of weeks the real show begins.