New York Rangers At St. Louis Blues Final Score: Streaking Blues Win 4-1

Four wins in a row for the Blues, who have apparently come prepared to play every game, and come prepared to show the opposition that they are once again a team to contend with. Who cares if they other team’s not in their conference? St. Louis still plays them as rough and as defensively tight as any other team. The Rangers, especially Marian Gaborik and Brad Richards, were dumbfounded how to get around the Blues’ defense, and could not hold up to the hard hits dealt out by David Backes and T.J. Oshie, amongst others.

The Blues, who outshot the Rangers 36-26, scored their insurance goal just one minute and one second into the third period. The goal was credited to Alex Steen, but, well… take a look:

Lundqvist obviously had no clue where the puck was, but in all fairness, neither did anyone else until it was in the back of the net. Steen might want to send Dan Girardi a thank you note – both for the assist and for not fully closing his hand on the puck.

The Blues iced it with an empty-netter than was finally scored by Jason Arnott, despite some major effort from Jamie Langenbrunner at the mouth of the net:

With tonight’s win, the Blues improve to 18-9-3 on the year, and goaltender Brian Elliott gets his 13th win of the season complete with a .962 save percentage to help him maintain the league lead.

Also helpful tonight were Saturday’s opponent, the Nashville Predators. The Preds scored two goals in the third period to take out the Detroit Red Wings, which helps the Blues into a tie for second place in the Central Division and fourth place in the Western Conference.

Remember pre-lockout, hard hitting, winning Blues hockey? It’s back.

New York Rangers At St. Louis Blues: Del Zotto Scores To Get Rangers Within One

All good things must come to an end, and Brian Elliott’s shut out streak is that: ended, all thanks from this pretty, pretty goal from Michael Del Zotto:

Elliott’s lateral movement was slow, and his pads weren’t on the ice – as pretty of a goal as that was, it was on Elliott.

A third goal’d be helpful, as always. There’s no harm in some insurance, and the way that the Blues have manhandled the Rangers, that’s a very attainable goal. The Blues outshot the Rangers 12-5 this period (and 27-16 for the game so far) , and have overwhelmed the Rangers with their physicality. David Backes has lead the, pardon the phrase, charge:

New York Rangers At St. Louis Blues: Blues Lead 2-0 After One

I had assumed that this was going to be a tightly contested goaltending duel, which is all fine and dandy, and totally doable if you play in the same Conference. But Henrik Lundqvist has been caught unawares, apparently, allowing a very un-Henrik like two goals in the first 20 minutes. Even more odd is that this is the first time all year that the Blues have scored two goals in the first period.

The first goal is this beauty by Patrik Berglund, who reaped the benefits of T.J. Oshie’s puck control skills. Oshie managed to keep a puck in the Rangers’ zone that a lesser forward might’ve let get away from him:

A little under four minutes later, David Perron scored his second of the year – a brilliant redirection of a Carlo Colaiacovo shot that caught Lundqvist off guard – he clearly was expecting it low, but Perron’s hand-eye coordination was able to roof it past Henrik.

The first 20 minutes was a penalty free affair, but had lots of shots on goal – the Blues lead the Rangers in that category 14-11.

New York Rangers At St. Louis Blues: Two Red Hot Teams Face Off

Some of the stars of this season of HBO's 24/7, The Road To The Winter Classic are coming to St. Louis tonight. The Rangers are playing excellent hockey and are in second place in the jammed Atlantic Division.