BLUESThe St. Louis Blues fell behind early on Friday in Tampa, with mutliple penalties disrupting their first-period approach.
Though the line of Pavel Buchnevich, Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou found success, the Blues came up short in Friday's first of two back-to-back games. The difficult first period proved too much to overcome, though they played a competitive game the rest of the way.
Kyrou, dishing an assist in the first and burying a goal in the second, extended his active point streak to a career-high seven games. Over that stretch, Kyrou has three goals and eight assists and now leads the team outright in goals.
"Every guy's gotta be committed, right from the get go," Blues Head Coach Craig Berube said on how the team and shake its streakiness and inconsistency. "You gotta have urgency right away in the game - if you don't, you can get behind like that."
After wrapping up the three-game road trip in Saturday's bout with the Florida Panthers, the Blues return home for a pair of games against Dallas and Carolina next week. With the season approaching the one-quarter mark, the Blues understand the work they need to do to continue their upward momentum from the last two weeks.
They bring a record of 10-10-0, worth 20 points and fourth in the Central Division, to FLA Live Arena for Saturday's matchup.
PANTHERSThe Florida Panthers, coming off a season in which they won the Presidents' Trophy as the NHL's best regular-season team, made a huge splash this offseason.
After 10 seasons with the club, Florida dealt forward Jonathan Huberdeau to Calgary this summer in exchange for Matthew Tkachuk. Huberdeau was coming off a career-best 115 points last season (No. 2 in the League), and Tkachuk's career-high 104 points ranked No. 8 at just 24 years old.
The Panthers have been less consistent than they were last season but are coming off an impressive win over Boston and will be on three days' rest when they host the Blues.
Aleksander Barkov led the way with three points against the Bruins, and goaltender Spencer Knight delivered another quality performance in net. Stopping 37 out of 39 Bruins shots, the 21-year-old goalie kept up his strong season - seeing improvements in goals-against average and save percentage over last season.
Saturday's matchup with the Blues is Florida's last game before setting out on a five-game road trip, their longest of the season. They enter the game with a record of 10-8-2, worth 22 points and sixth place in the Atlantic Division.
HEAD-TO-HEADThe Blues and Panthers had as close of a season series as possible last year. The Blues won in overtime at home and lost in a shootout in Florida for a 1-0-1 record. Over their last eight matchups in Florida, the Blues are 6-1-1.
