Blues, Blackhawks get reacquainted Sunday

CHICAGO - The Blues and Blackhawks will meet for the first time since Oct. 18, when the Blues earned a 5-2 victory at Scottrade Center. Jaden Schwartz recorded his third career hat trick in the victory.
St. Louis and Chicago will face-off three times over the season's final 11 games.
The puck drops at 6:30 p.m. on NBC Sports Network, the NBC Sports App or KMOX 1120 AM. Coverage will also be available at stlouisblues.com and by using the NHL App.

THE MATCHUP

BLUES Alex Pietrangelo scored two goals, Nikita Soshnikov scored his first as a Blue and Brayden Schenn scored the overtime game winner to secure a huge two points for the Blues on Saturday night against the New York Rangers.
The Rangers had a 3-2 lead to start the third period, but the Blues fought back to force overtime and get the win, which moved St. Louis to within three points of Dallas for the final Wild Card spot. The Blues currently have one game in hand on the Stars.
"There were some ups and downs during that one, I would say," Blues Head Coach Mike Yeo said after Saturday's victory. "It's a big win, big response in the third period."
"I thought other than the second period, we had some real good pushes," Blues captain Alex Pietrangelo said. "I think we did a lot of things we built off (our last road) trip. I thought we let it get away from us a bit there (in the second period), but overall we needed those two points."
The Blues lost Vladimir Tarasenko to an upper-body injury after the first period Saturday. Yeo said an update is expected to be available on Tarasenko on Sunday.

BLACKHAWKS Jonathan Toews, Tomas Jurco and Jordan Oesterle scored, but it wasn't enough for the Blackhawks, who fell 5-3 to the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center in their last outing on Saturday.
The Blackhawks fired 38 shots on goal in the loss, their fourth in the last five games.
"For the first part of the year we were pretty good and recently we've had, I think, three or four games where we've had leads and didn't come up with points, so that's tough," Blackhawks Head Coach Joel Quenneville told NHL.com. "That's one of those things whether it's predictability, doing the right things with the puck in the right times of the game, a combination of things, taking a penalty with a couple minutes to go, and it's in our net, so it's not the same way all the time."
Chicago has a 30-34-8 record (68 points), which is 16 points out of a playoff spot in the Western Conference.
HEAD-TO-HEAD The Blues are 1-0 against Chicago this season and have earned points in six of their last eight matchups.
At United Center, the Blues are 4-2-0 in their last six games.
Sunday's game marks the 308th all-time regular season matchup between the teams, which is the Blues' most against any opponent.

HOT VS. CHICAGO

• Tarasenko (15 goals in 21 games) has more goals against the Blackhawks than any other NHL player since the 2014-15 season (James Neal, 11 goals in 26 games, Filip Forsberg, 11 goals in 27 games). Tarasenko has 21 points in his last 18 games against the Blackhawks (13 goals, 8 assists).
  - Alexander Steen has nine points in his last 10 games (three goals, six assists)
  - Alex Pietrangelo has five points in his last seven games (three goals, two assists)
  - Brayden Schenn has three points in his last four games (two goals, one assist)
  - Jake Allen is 7-4-1 with a 2.29 goals-against average and a .924 save-percentage in his career against Chicago. He's allowed two goals or fewer in eight of 12 games.

BLUE NOTES

• The Blues are 8-2-2 in the second game of back-to-backs this season and are 23-4-2 in their last 29 games under that scenario overall.