Blues at Flames preview
St. Louis seeking seventh straight victory; Calgary has won four of past five
by Aaron Vickers / NHL.com Independent Correspondent
BLUES (11-3-3) at FLAMES (10-7-2)
10 p.m. ET; CBC, SN, SN360, SN1, CITY, FS-MW, ESPN+, NHL.TV
The Game
The St. Louis Blues will try to extend their winning streak to seven games when they visit the Calgary Flames at Scotiabank Saddledome on Saturday.
The Blues have outscored opponents 22-14 during the streak, which includes four wins in overtime, and are 8-1-0 in the past nine games.
Jordan Binnington is expected to start in goal for St. Louis. He is 6-1-0 with a 1.99 goals-against average and .933 save percentage in his past seven starts.
David Rittich is expected to make his NHL-leading 16th start for the Flames, who have won two in a row and are 4-1-0 in the past five games.
Players to watch
St. Louis forward Ryan O'Reilly has nine points (three goals, six assists) in his past six games.
Calgary forward Matthew Tkachuk has eight points (five goals, three assists) in his past five games.
They said it
"We know what our game plan and our systems look like, and when we get off our game plan a little bit we see we're not as effective. When we play together, stick to our systems and everyone's pulling their weight we look like a pretty good team." -- Blues forward Jaden Schwartz
"We're excited to play in tonight's game for sure. I thought obviously last game was one of our better ones the way we played moving pucks. Hopefully we can build off that. It'll be a lot of emotion. It's a great team coming in, obviously, and it's always fun to play Saturday night games. Big ones." -- Flames defenseman Mark Giordano
Blues projected lineup
Jaden Schwartz -- Brayden Schenn -- Robert Thomas
Zach Sanford -- Ryan O'Reilly -- David Perron
Sammy Blais -- Tyler Bozak -- Jacob de la Rose
Mackenzie MacEachern -- Ivan Barbashev -- Oskar Sundqvist
Alex Pietrangelo -- Colton Parayko
Jay Bouwmeester -- Justin Faulk
Vince Dunn -- Carl Gunnarsson
Jordan Binnington
Jake Allen
Scratched: Robert Bortuzzo
Injured: Vladimir Tarasenko (upper body), Alexander Steen (ankle sprain)
Flames projected lineup
Johnny Gaudreau -- Sean Monahan -- Elias Lindholm
Andrew Mangiapane -- Mikael Backlund -- Matthew Tkachuk
Sam Bennett -- Derek Ryan -- Alan Quine
Milan Lucic -- Mark Jankowski -- Tobias Rieder
Mark Giordano -- Travis Hamonic
Noah Hanifin -- Rasmus Andersson
TJ Brodie -- Michael Stone
David Rittich
Cam Talbot
Scratched: Michael Frolik, Brandon Davidson
Injured: Austin Czarnik (lower body)
Status report
The Blues held an optional morning skate. …de la Rose will make his Blues debut after being acquired in a trade with the Detroit Red Wings on Wednesday.
Stat pack
Pietrangelo has eight points (two goals, six assists) in the past six games. … Perron has eight points (two goals, six assists) in the past six games. … Lindholm has 11 points (five goals, six assists) in a nine-game point streak. … Gaudreau has eight points (two goals, six assists) in his past seven games. … Monahan has eight points (two goals, six assists) in his past five games.