Avs open home stand vs Blues

A successful start to a three game home stand will be the aim of the Colorado Avalanche when they host the St. Louis Blues at the Pepsi Center Saturday night. Game time is 7PM. Altitude will televise the game. 1510 AM will handle the radio broadcast.

This is the third of four games between these teams. Colorado won the first two, one in each city. The final game will be March 16th in St. Louis.

St. Louis Blues 30-25-9 69 points Last 10 games 6-3-1
4th in Central Division
10th in Western Conference

This is the third of a six game road trip for St. Louis.
The Blues are hot, coming into this game having won five straight. They’ve scored 23 goals in those 5 games. Former Av Paul Kariya has 8 points during the streak.
The Blues turnaround began January 2nd, when they replaced coach Andy Murray with Davis Payne, who was coaching the Blues AHL farm team in Peoria. Since Payne took over the Blues record is 14-7-3.

Leading scorers for the Blues are Andy McDonald, who has 20 goals and 20 assists for 40 points, and T.J. Oshie who has 15 goals and 25 assists for an identical 40 points.

Chris Mason is the Blues top goalkeeper. He has a 22-17-8 record. Ty Conklin is his backup. His record is 8-8-1.

Colorado Avalanche 35-22-6 76 points Last 10 games 6-4-0
2nd in Northwest Division
6th in Western Conference

The Avs begin a three game home stand looking to get back on track. They’ve lost two of three since resuming play after the Olympic break, the most painful a loss to Phoenix Thursday, in which Wojtek Wolski, traded by the Avs the day before, scored the game winner with 23 seconds left in the third period.
The Avs trail the Vancouver Canucks by two points in the race for the Northwest Division title. The Canucks lost 6-3 in Chicago Friday night, failing to gain ground. They are idle Saturday, so the Avalanche can pull into a tie for the division lead with a victory over the Blues.

Leading scorer for the Avs is Paul Stastny, who has 12 goals and 47 assists for 59 points, Second is Chris Stewart, who has 21 goals and 26 assists for 47 points.

Craig Anderson, who played in his 19th consecutive game Thursday, is the Avs top goalie with a record of 32-18-5.

NOTES
-Matt Duchene of the Avs leads all rookie scorers with 44 points, 9 more than John Tavares of the New York Islanders. T.J. Galiardi is 7th among NHL rookie scorers with 28 points.

Bruce Wilkie is a Colorado semi-native, having moved to Denver in 1971. He has worked with pro and college hockey teams since 1975 and now covers the Avs for thehockeywriters.com.