For Blues, They Have To Go Streaking, Have To Do It Now

ST. LOUIS – The past two games for the St. Louis Blues could have definitely been a make-or-brake time.

Hosting the Calgary Flames, the team holding down the final wild card spot in the Western Conference was five points ahead of the Blues with two games in hand. Two regulation losses and it would have been understandable to think that the Blues were cooked.

But two regulation wins, which is what the Blues (22-20-4) achieved with 2-1 and 4-1 wins on Tuesday and Thursday, respectively, pulls them right back into the fight. With both hands on the rope, just one point back.

The Flames (21-16-7) still have those two games in hand, as do the Vancouver Canucks, who are even in points with the Blues but have a better points percentage (.545 to .522).

But they’re 46 games into the season, and with just 36 games remaining, the Blues can’t think of anything else: they have to go streaking.

There’s one thing the Blues haven’t achieved that every other team in the NHL has accomplished: put together three straight wins.

This is the Blues’ eighth time this season stringing together consecutive wins. In the previous seven times, they failed to put a third win together with them. They’re 0-6-1, only gaining a point when they lost 3-2 in overtime against the Philadelphia Flyers on Nov. 30, Jim Montgomery’s first loss as Blues coach.

They get another crack at it on Saturday when they visit the Utah Hockey Club for the first time. And they can’t be satisfied.

“It’s another hurdle that we’ve got to go through together,” Montgomery said. “I think that if we’re committed to playing like we did tonight to start the game, I felt that we did a really good job of defending our slot, which we know that Calgary’s really good at penetrating. When they did, I thought ‘Hofe’ was right on top of his game.

“… Tonight was a really good step. We’ll see when we go to Utah here. We’ll get our first opportunity in a while to win three in a row. We’ve got to knock right through that door.”

Do they ever.

Even the last-place Chicago Blackhawks (once) and San Jose Sharks (twice), second fewest points in the league, have accomplished three straight wins. But they’re nowhere near talking postseason.

The Blues are, and if they want to stay in the conversation, they have to string together winning streaks, and they have to do it sooner than later.

“We've really got to dial in,” said forward Dylan Holloway, who had two assists to give him 34 points in 46 games. “Maybe at times we get a little too high, a little too low. I think we've got to understand that we played great tonight, but the next game starts 0-0. We can't get complacent, we can't think that it's going to be easier; it's going to be hard. Utah is going to be good. They're in the playoff race, too. These divisional games matter a lot. We've just got to be dialed for Utah.”

It’s time to go streaking, or else it’s right back to the drawing board – again. But time, and games, are running out.

“We need to go on a streak,” said captain Brayden Schenn, who scored twice Thursday. “That's just the reality of it. We can't be satisfied that we beat Calgary twice and then go on the road and not play well. Step by step and we have to have a good road trip coming up.”