St. Louis Blues will be too good for dangerous Edmonton Oilers - NHL Preview
St. Louis Blues will look to continue their brilliant start in the current road trip on Wednesday, February 29th, 2012, when they face a surging Edmonton Oilers at the Rexall Place.
The Blues are on a six-game road trip which started off with a bang as they won all of their first three games.
The win keeps the Blues in the hunt for the top spot in the Western Conference as they rank fourth with 85-points just three behind conference leading Vancouver Canucks.
With St. Louis playing with the same confidence on the road that they have displayed at home ice throughout the season, Edmonton Oilers will have their work cut out on Wednesday.
The Oilers have recently started putting together some big wins over the opposition but will face their toughest test yet when the defensively brilliant Blues visit Rexall Place.
Edmonton though has nothing left to play for this season. Their poor results early in the season have left them near the bottom of the Western Conference and even with just pride to play for the Oilers are giving it their all in every game.
Blues (39-17-7, 85 pts)
St. Louis are currently on a three game winning run and in their current form are hard to beat. Starting their road trip with two shootout wins over Nashville Predators and Winnipeg Jets, the Blues topped it off with a big 3-1 win over playoff chasing Calgary
Flames.
The Flames went ahead early in the first period but it did not take St. Louis long to take the lead with two goals in the same period.
Jason Arnott’s second goal of the game in the second period made it 3-1 and the Blues won comfortably.
"We've got great chemistry in here ... and we've got some key guys out for us right now that are going to help us down the stretch and in the playoffs," Arnott said.
Oilers (25-31-6, 56 pts)
Edmonton are not playing badly either.
The Oilers had won two straight games after ending a three game skid on February 21st and even though they lost their next game 3-1 to the Phoenix Coyotes, Edmonton bounced back quickly with a 5-3 win over Winnipeg Jets.
Edmonton were losing 2-1 at the end of the second period but came out in the third with steely determination as they put in four goals to stun the Jets.
Coach Tom Renney said after the game.
"I like the way we handled the game in general. It was a bit of a track meet at times, naturally. Certainly being able to come out and really go to work in the third period was important to us."
Predictions
Even though Edmonton are playing good the Blues will be too good for them.
St. Louis is known for its stingy defence and it will be a low scoring game.
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