When the St. Louis Blues and Dallas Stars met last week, the Blues cruised to a 5-1 win at American Airlines Center in Dallas.
"I wouldn't expect that again," Blues Head Coach Craig Berube said.
What Berube intended with that comment was that such a lopsided victory was an outlier - games between these division rivals are typically much, much tighter. As you might remember, the Blues and Stars played a tightly-contested second-round series in the Stanley Cup Playoffs last season that wasn't decided until double overtime in Game 7. This season, the Blues are 3-0-1 against the Stars. Two of the games were decided by one goal, another was decided by two goals, and then there was last week's outlier.
"We already talked about it. It's going to probably be the toughest game of the year in my opinion," Berube said. "They're gonna come in here and they're going to have an angry on. It's going to be a physical, hard game. It's a big game for both teams, it really is. We can get some more separation from them (in the standings), and obviously they're trying to gain on us. It's one of those games everybody looks forward to."
A six-game winning streak for the Blues has given them some breathing room over Dallas in the Central Division standings. The Stars sit six points behind the Blues for the division lead with one-game in hand. The Colorado Avalanche are currently in second place - five points behind the Blues with three games in hand as of Friday afternoon.
