The Colorado Avalanche and the St. Louis Blues meet in NHL action from the Enterprise Center on Sunday.
The Colorado Avalanche will try to snap a four-game losing skid after a 2-1 shootout loss to New York last time out. Nathan MacKinnon leads the Avalanche in scoring with 34 points including a team-high 26 assists but will miss significant time due to injury while Mikko Rantanen is second with 33 points including a team-high 16 goals and 17 assists. Cale Makar has 24 points with 18 assists as well this season. Alexandar Georgiev is 11-5-2 with a 2.65 GAA and a .920 save percentage while Pavel Francouz is 2-5 with a 3.03 GAA and a .907 save percentage between the pipes for Colorado this season.
The St. Louis Blues will look to rebound from a 5-2 loss to Winnipeg in their last game. Robert Thomas has a team-high 24 points with 6 goals and 18 assists. Jordan Kyrou has 22 points split between 10 goals and 12 assists and Brayden Schenn has 20 points with 6 goals and 14 assists. Pavel Buchnevich also has 20 points with 11 assists and Vladimir Tarasenko has 20 points with 7 goals and 13 assists this season. Jordan Binnington’s seen the action in goal for St. Louis up to this point in the season with a record of 9-11 along with a 3.42 GAA and a .889 save percentage this season.
Colorado is 0-4 in their last 4 games played on 1 days rest while the under is 4-0 in their last 4 division games. St. Louis is 0-4 in their last 4 games following a home loss by 3 or more goals and 2-11 in their last 13 games after scoring 2 goals or less in the previous game while the over is 5-0-1 in their last 6 games after scoring 2 goals or less in the previous game.
I get the reasoning behind backing the Avs as the defending Stanley Cup champs at plus money but the thing here is that the Avs are so banged up that a lot has to go right to even compete when they take the ice. St. Louis has been slumping again, but this is a perfect storm for St. Louis. They get to get back on track against a wounded rival that they can kick while they’re down and they continue to get revenge after Colorado ousted the Blues from the playoffs last year. Give me St. Louis in this one.