GDT #10: Blues vs Canadiens 6:00 CT Bally Sports, 101ESPN

[theohall]

BLUES The St. Louis Blues delivered an impressive 4-1 win over the New Jersey Devils on Friday night at Enterprise Center to begin their back-to-back set. The Blues outshot New Jersey - the NHL's No. 2 offense - 35-34 to get back into the win column.

"(The Devils) came hard in the third (period), but I thought we handled it well," said Blues Head Coach Craig Berube. "Overall a real good effort by everybody."

Kevin Hayes scored his first goal as a Blue, putting the Blues up 2-0 in the second period, and it eventually stood as the game-winning goal. Hayes also added an empty-net goal and empty-net assist to help put the Devils away.

The Blues will quickly turn around for the second of their four-game homestand, facing another Eastern Conference team in the Montreal Canadiens. The stay continues on Tuesday and Thursday against familiar foes Winnipeg and Arizona, respectively.

They'll face the Canadiens with a record of 4-4-1, worth nine points and fifth place in the Central Division.

CANADIENS The Montreal Canadiens are off to a promising start relative to their 2022-23 season. After a last-place finish in the Atlantic Division, Montreal's young roster is over .500 so far with plenty of tight battles under their belt. Out of 10 games so far this season, the Canadiens have played to overtime or a shootout in five of them - the most in the NHL.

Cole Caufield, Sean Monahan and captain Nick Suzuki lead Martin St. Louis' roster, Caufield and Monahan hoping to maintain their health after playing just 71 games combined last season. Caufield is off to an encouraging start, leading the team with 10 points in as many games.

The Canadiens are coming off two straight losses, falling to the Golden Knights via shootout then a 3-2 regulation defeat in Arizona. A familiar face to Blues fans, goaltender Jake Allen notched his 400th career NHL game against the Coyotes early in his fourth season in Montreal. Before his trade to the Canadiens in 2020, Allen played seven years and 289 games with the Blues - No. 2 in franchise goaltender history.

After visiting the Blues, the Canadiens return home to face the Lightning, visit Detroit, then host four in a row at Bell Centre.

They head to Enterprise Center with a record of 5-3-2, good for 12 points and third in the Atlantic Division.

HEAD TO HEAD The Blues went 0-2-0 against Montreal last season, though scored four goals in both matchups. The Blues are 4-5-1 in their last 10 games against Montreal, including 3-2-0 at Enterprise Center.

PLAYERS TO WATCH
BLUES Kevin Hayes, who scored three points - including his first goal as a Blue - to drive the win over the Devils. Acquired by the Blues this offseason, Hayes has 12 points in 24 career games against Montreal.

CANADIENS Sean Monahan, who has an active four-game goal streak heading into Saturday's matchup. The 29-year-old forward has eight goals and five assists in 24 career games against the Blues, including one assist last season.

BLUE NOTES
The Blues are 6-2-2 in their last 10 overall games at Enterprise Center

They have scored a power-play goal in seven of their last nine matchups with Montreal, going 9-for-29 (31 percent) on the power play over those nine games

Saturday marks the third game the Blues will play against an Eastern Conference opponent this season. In 32 matchups with the East last season, the Blues were an even 14-14-4

The matchup with Montreal also marks the finale of the Blues' second back-to-back set of the season. Since the start of the 2021-22 season, the Blues share the NHL lead with 3.58 goals per game on the second night of a back-to-back and are 10th in point percentage at .538 (12-10-4).

Jordan Binnington became the seventh goaltender in the NHL this season to record an assist, helping to set up Robert Thomas' empty-net goal late in Friday's win.

[glen a richter]

So far so good... I like this version of the Blues better than the one that "played" against Colorado and Vancouver. Keep it up.

[flyingnote38]

so we have more shg than ppg

if we can fix the power play, we might be in the mix for the wc

[theohall]

So Kyrou doesn't even attempt any of his flashy moves, plays a straightforward game, and goes off (1G, 2A, 9 shots on goal, 10 attempts, rewarded with the most ice time among the forwards)... More of that please...

Interestingly, the Blues top 2 lines (Buchnevich/Thomas/Kapanen and Saad/Schenn/Kyrou) are taking the majority of the defensive zone faceoffs. The 3rd and 4th line are drawing mostly offensive zone starts. This will slow down scoring somewhat, but it also speaks to what Berube and the new staff want from everyone in terms of defense first and generate the offense from a sound defensive structure. IMO, this is a big reason Thomas only had 2 shots on goal in the game. He was being relied upon to play defense first and he did it exceedingly well in this game. While the 4th line got kudos from Rivers, the stats don't back it up with that group (Sundqvist/Blais/Neighbours) winding up -2 in a game in which the Blues scored 6 even strength goals and only surrendered 2 even strength markers. It's even worse when one considers 4 of the 5 faceoffs the line took were in the offensive zone. They've got to be more reliable in their own end. The eyeball test says they played well, but the analytics simply don't back it up.

Even with the score being 6-3, Montreal has to be given credit for never quitting on the game, like we saw most of this Blues roster do last season.