BLUES The St. Louis Blues were held off the scoreboard Thursday in Ottawa. Anders Nilsson made 35 saves for the Senators, who got a second period goal from Christian Wolanin and a late empty-netter from Chris Tierney to secure a 2-0 victory.
Jake Allen made 19 saves for the Blues.
"The effort's there, the mindset's there, it's just that we've been snakebitten a little bit lately," Allen said after the game. "Everything seemed to be going right for us in that 11-game [win streak Jan. 23-Feb. 19]. You have those points in the season and then after that it's been tough. There's been a couple games where we've got goals, but they've been tough to come by."
"We're running into some tough luck right now with scoring," Blues Head Coach Craig Berube added. "But you've got to battle through it. We've got to do a better job of taking the goalie's eyes away and scoring some dirty goals."
The Blues, who are 0-2-1 in their last three games, fell to the first Wild Card spot in the Western Conference as of Friday afternoon.
"It was going to be a race to the end," Allen added. "It's still not over. Long way to go."
PENGUINS Phil Kessel, Nick Bjugstad and Jake Guentzel each recorded a goal and an assist and backup goalie Casey DeSmith posted a 26-save shutout to help the Pittsburgh Penguins to a 5-0 win against the Buffalo Sabres in their last game on Thursday night.
The win moved the Penguins to 39-23-9, just two points behind the New York Islanders for second in the Metropolitan Division.
"The team's been playing awesome, obviously, and then they didn't do anything different tonight," DeSmith told NHL.com after the game. "They were great again tonight. It was definitely a team shutout, team win."
The Penguins have won three straight games and are 7-1-2 in their last 10.
HEAD-TO-HEAD Saturday's game will be the second and final meeting between the Blues and Penguins this season. The Penguins beat the Blues 6-1 in the first matchup on Dec. 29 in St. Louis.
The Blues have earned points in six straight games at PPG Paints Arena (5-0-1) and are 7-1-2 in the last 10 trips to Pittsburgh. Five of the last nine games in Pittsburgh have gone to overtime.
