Blues at Sabres preview: Keep the streak

The Blues are rolling on a six game winning streak. Surely they’ve passed the Minnesota Wild in the standings.

Right?

Welcome to the playoff push, where you can play near perfect hockey and the status quo remains. The Blues are 8-1-1 in their last ten, and have a very good chance tonight to win their seventh straight in Buffalo. And yet, there are the Wild.

The Blues are firing on all cylinders, especially buoyed by the return of Torey Krug against his former team on Tuesday. Krug had a goal and an assist on his birthday, helping the Blues to a 4-2 victory over the Bruins. The Blues’ offense, especially their second line of Pavel Buchnevich, Robert Thomas, and Vladimir Tarasenko (who scored two goals in the victory) is a force, and with their defense back at full strength, the Sabres may have their hands full tonight.

The Blues may have learned their lesson after playing down to the competition before this current streak began, but the Sabres won’t roll over. Former Blue Tage Thompson is coming into his own in a very promising way with 33 goals and 26 assists to lead the team. Jeff Skinner is close behind with 31 goals and 24 assists. The scoring does drop off of that, but the Sabres still have something there to build on. Are any of the Sabres on a tear like Robert Thomas’ levels of streaking? No, but it would behoove the Blues to keep an eye on the Sabres’ young guns tonight. The team may be out of the playoff picture for this season, but there’s a future there that’s going to be bright.