With the trade deadline come and gone, it’s time to take a look at the landscape now that the dust has settled.
We’ve made a career out of mocking and hurling insults at the St. Louis Blues. At this point it’s basically batting practice. Luckily for us, we’ll have our bread and butter this year. Again. Because we always will. Nothing is ever going to change in Missouri, as they attempt to roll out essentially the same roster that got domed by the Preds in Round 2 last year, and basically the same one that hasn’t really ever come close to winning anything. Same as it ever was. You can set your watch to it.
St. Louis Blues
’16-’17 Record: 46-29-7 99 points (3rd in Central, out in Round 2 to NSH)
Team Stats 5v5: 50.1 CF% (15th) 50.4 SF% (15th) 51.0 SCF% (10th) 8.3 SH% (7th) .923 SV% (17th)
Special Teams: 21.2 PP% (8th) 84.7 PK% (3rd)
at 
Game Time: 7:00PM CST
TV/Radio: NBCSN, WGN-AM 720
Made America Great Again: SLGT
Well the world didn’t end. Not yet at least. And apparently there’s hockey to play down in West East St. Louis tonight.
at 
Game Time: 8:30PM CDT
TV/Radio: CSN, NBCSN, SportsNet360, TVA-S, WGN-AM 720
If A Urinal Cake Were A Town: St. Louis GameTime
As far as inevitabilities go, the Hawks and Blues meeting in the first round of the playoffs this year is right up there with death, taxes, and David Haugh writing something profoundly ignorant, stupid, and damaging. And with this series, all of the old war horses once again will be trotted out, from the Hawks “turning it on” and hockey followers everywhere from local to national believing beyond a shadow of a doubt that this time it will be different for the Blues.
We keep moving along through the river, well to be more apt this underground garbage fire of a preview that is slowly encroaching on nuclear waste, to the forwards of the St. Louis Blues. And once you get past the first line, it gets pretty automaton, but you probably already knew that. It’s a raft of palookas and hired goons that are meant to make a bunch of sounds flashed on the screen from the Batman TV series (live-action, Pure West, not the cartoon, which I haven’t seen but am told isn’t bad). You know the plan, you know the players, it’s just a question of if the Hawks can execute the plays.
Alex Steen-Jori Lehtera-Vladimir Tarasenko
I’ve spent so long thinking that Alex Steen is just a guy that’s taken about two years for me to pivot and finally admit that he’s a plus forward. Is he really a first liner? No, probably not. But he’s struck up an understanding with Tarasenko that’s become pretty deadly and really Steen doesn’t do anything wrong. He’s always in the right spot making the right play, he just doesn’t do it with any flash so you have to really pay attention to him.
After a mostly silent draft from a trade standpoint, even if Stan Bowman and Doug Wilson made a lot of teal and red clad sphincters audibly clench when they approached the registry table, it appears that Bowman is going one of two directions. The first option is that he’s going to allow this group, which for all of their faults were a goal away from another Cup Final berth against an inferior opponent, another crack at the Chalice minus some deadweight and augment as the deadline approaches. Or he’s going to let the market get set tomorrow in a barren UFA market place and parlay some of his cost-controlled assets into greater return and/or cap space.
at 
Game Time: 8:30PM CDT
TV/Radio: CSN, WGN-AM 720
The Blasting Room: Mile High Hockey
For being in the same division for the first time ever, it sure feels like the Blackhawks have played the Avs 45 times already this season. But in reality, tonight will close out the first ever divisional season series between these two clubs, with the sixth and final meeting coming tonight at the Pop Can in downtown Denver.
vs
Game Time: 7:00PM Central
TV/Radio: CSN, WGN-AM 720
The Stickiest of the Icky: Mile High Hockey
As difficult as it may be to compute, the Hawks tonight will play game 49 tonight of the 2013-2014 season, now surpassing last year’s abbreviated campaign, still four days shy of a year from when that season started . They’re currently only 7 points off their record pace of last year (though Friday’s guests the Ducks are only 2 back), though it feels like it’s been a a bit bumpier ride so far. But with a full 82 on the docket on this go-around, longevity will once again be rewarded, which is something the visiting and upstart Avalanche are beginning to deal with themselves.
