Preview: Blues vs. Blackhawks

BLUES VS. BLACKHAWKS

TEAM SNAPSHOTS

BLUES The St. Louis Blues will enter Saturday's matchup against Chicago looking to bounce back from their first loss of the regular season on Thursday night.
Vladimir Tarasenko had a goal and an assist, while Colton Parayko and Brayden Schenn scored in a 4-3 loss to the Colorado Avalanche. The game was the Blues' first without captain Ryan O'Reilly, who was on the COVID protocol list and missed his first game since joining the Blues in the summer of 2018.
"They're a good team over there. They play fast, we knew that," Schenn said after the game. "I don't think we had skating legs tonight, I don't think we moved our feet enough and the result was for us to play probably too much in our own end."
"They're a very good team, they're hard to play against," added Blues Head Coach Craig Berube. "If we want to consistently beat them and compete with them, we have to play for 60 minutes. We only played for 20 tonight."
As of Friday afternoon, the Blues sat first in the Western Conference with 10 points (5-1-0) in six games.
BLACKHAWKS The Chicago Blackhawks will be playing their second game of a back-to-back when they travel to St. Louis to face the Blues on Saturday night.
On Friday, the Blackhawks dropped a 6-3 decision to the Carolina Hurricanes and fell to 0-6-2 on the season. Chicago is one of just two teams without a victory (Arizona).
Chicago has a handful of players on the COVID protocol list, including Patrick Kane, Henrik Borgstrom, Riley Stillman and Jujhar Khaira. Those players' status for Saturday is unknown.
Offseason additions for the Blackhawks include goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, who Chicago obtained in an offseason trade from the Vegas Golden Knights, and defensemen Seth Jones, Caleb Jones and Jake McCabe. The team also has captain Jonathan Toews back after he missed last season due to choronic immune response syndrome.
HEAD-TO-HEAD Saturday's game will be the Blues' first against a team not included in the West Division last season. The Blues and Blackhawks haven't met in a regular-season game since March 8, 2020 - a 2-0 Blues' win at United Center.
The Blues have won the last four meetings between the teams, outscoring the Blackhawks 16-8.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

BLUES Jordan Binnington, who is 10-1-3 in his last 14 regular-season starts. Binnington started 4-0-0 in his career for the first time and is 5-1-1 in his last seven regular-season games at Enterprise Center.
BLACKHAWKS Seth Jones, who played 28 minutes and 11 seconds on Wednesday against Toronto and netted two assists for his first multi-point effort with the Blackhawks. Seth has six assists in his last six games.

BLUE NOTES

Tarasenko is on a five-game point streak and has recorded multi-point outings in each of his last three games… The Blues have allowed only two power-play goals in 21 chances against in their first six games, which ranked fourth overall as of Friday (90.5%)… David Perron will tie Al MacInnis (613) for 12th on the Blues' all-time games played list.