GDT #79: Blues vs Blackhawks | 7:00 pm CT | BSMW, 101 ESPN

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BLUES The recent three-game road trip started out rough for the St. Louis Blues. After back-to-back losses and playoffs seemingly fading from possibility, Sunday would have been a convenient time to throw in the towel.

However, Robert Thomas wanted to send a different message.

"We're still competitive," he said. "We're not mailing it in, we're playing for pride, and obviously there's still a little chance, so we're just doing our best to try and win every game."

Thomas recorded four points in a 6-5 shootout win over the Anaheim Ducks. The game was closer than the Blues had hoped - they led three separate times, including a 5-3 lead in the third - but the Ducks fought back to send it to a shootout.

"Obviously we'd like to clean it up a little bit," Thomas said. "We had the lead three or four times. It's frustrating to give up the lead and have to go to a shootout."

Anaheim sent three of the most skilled forwards in the league: Trevor Zegras, Leo Carlsson and Troy Terry. However, Jordan Binnington was up the task, and he stopped all three.


"If he's not the best, he's close to the best in the league in the shootout," Head Coach Drew Bannister said about Binnington, who leads the NHL with 17 shootout saves this season. "He's pretty automatic."

On the other end, Jordan Kyrou scored on a smooth backhand move, so the Blues took the victory to keep the playoff hopes alive.

The Blues' playoffs odds are slim but not impossible. They're five points back of the Vegas Golden Knights for the final Wild Card spot with four games remaining. After Chicago, the Blues continue a three-game homestand against the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday.

BLACKHAWKS Their record doesn't show it, but the Chicago Blackhawks (23-49-5) are having a solid season.

The Blackhawks didn't begin the season with expectations to win the Stanley Cup or even make the playoffs. Rather, the focus was building around rookie forward Connor Bedard and letting their other young players develop.

By that metric, this season has gone quite well.

Bedard has been as advertised. He's the Calder Trophy favorite and the engine that makes Chicago's offense roll. He leads the Blackhawks in goals (22) and assists (37), and he's capable of scoring from anywhere, which he proved last time he came to St. Louis.

Without him, however, the team falls apart. When Bedard missed about six weeks with a fractured jaw, the Blackhawks went 3-10-1 and got shut out four times in that span.

The same was true Sunday. Playing the second game of a back-to-back, Bedard went quiet. He had no points and one shot on goal, and nobody else picked up the slack. One day after beating the Dallas Stars, the Blackhawks lost 4-0 to the Minnesota Wild. That game was the 13th time Chicago had been shut out this season, the most in a season since the 2014-15 Buffalo Sabres.

"We couldn't really muster too much on the offense," Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson said, "and we couldn't kill anything defensively. Just way too much time in the (defensive) zone."

Outside of Bedard, the Blackhawks have quite a few young guys that either have or will become solid players. Defensemen Kevin Korchinski, 19, and Alex Vlasic, 22, have a ton of potential on the blue line. Phillip Kurashev, 24, has become a nice second option; he's the only player other than Bedard to eclipse 50 points this season.

For now, though, the Blackhawks are still a few steps away from being a competitive team. They have the second-fewest points in the NHL, ahead of only the San Jose Sharks.

HEAD TO HEAD This is the fourth and final meeting between the Blues and Blackhawks this season. St. Louis took a 2-1 season series lead with a 7-5 comeback win Dec. 23 at Enterprise Center.

PLAYERS TO WATCH
BLUES Since March 17, Robert Thomas had gone nine straight games without a goal. He broke out of that slump in a big way in Anaheim, exploding for a goal and three assists. Thomas' four-point effort both tied his season high and tied the second-most points of any Blue this season (Torey Krug had five points Feb. 11 in Montreal).

BLACKHAWKS Calder Trophy front-runner Connor Bedard has had little difficulty adjusting to the NHL. The 18-year-old leads both Chicago and all NHL rookies in scoring (59 points) despite missing 14 games.

BLUE NOTES
The Blues are 7-1-1 in their last nine home games against Chicago.

The Blues have scored at least three goals in eight of their last nine games against Chicago, outscoring the Blackhawks 37-22 in that span.

With his next start, Jordan Binnington will pass Jake Allen for sole possession of third place on the Blues' all-time leaderboard in games started. Binnington and Allen are currently tied at 271 starts.

After four points Sunday, Robert Thomas is now at 81 points on the season, becoming the second Blue in the last 20 seasons to reach 80 points (Vladimir Tarasenko had 82 points in 2021-22).

Thomas is also one of four forwards in the NHL with at least 46 blocked shots and 66 takeaways this season, joined by Mathew Barzal, Auston Matthews and Alex Tuch.

Jordan Kyrou had three assists Sunday, plus he scored the lone shootout goal. Kyrou currently has a three-game point streak and has 13 points in his last nine games (six goals, seven assists).

Colton Parayko is tied with Mortiz Seider for the most blocked shots in the NHL (205), and he leads all defensemen in takeaways (71). If Parayko can finish ahead of Seider, he'll become the first blueliner to lead the league in both blocks and takeaways since the NHL began tracking both stats in 2005-06.