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Blues, Predators battle each other -- and for playoff positioning
A playoff spot will not literally be at stake in Sunday's game between the St. Louis Blues and Nashville Predators.
What the game could help determine, however, is how long either the Blues or Predators get to stick around in this season's playoffs.
The Blues clinched a playoff spot by earning a point in a shootout loss at Colorado on Friday night while the Predators moved within one point of clinching a berth with their 3-0 win at home over Minnesota on Saturday. All Nashville must do to eliminate the Los Angeles Kings is earn one point in any of its final four games or have the Kings lose just once.
"Probably the biggest game of the year so far, and it's going to be fun," Predators forward Filip Forsberg told NHL.com about Sunday's game. "It's going to be really fun to go in there and try to climb the standings as high as we can."
What St. Louis and Nashville will be fighting for is positioning for the playoffs, with each team hoping to finish third in the Central Division. That would set up a first-round matchup with the struggling Minnesota Wild, headed for a second-place finish in the division despite losing 13 of their 17 games since March 1.
Whichever team doesn't finish third could well end up as the second wild-card entry in the Western Conference, which would mean a first-round matchup against the Chicago Blackhawks.
Going into Sunday's game, the Blues and Predators are tied with 91 points, although the Blues currently own the tiebreaker and have a game in hand. Nashville is one point behind the Calgary Flames for the top wild-card spot.
The shootout loss in Colorado left the Blues 11-1-2 in their last 14 games as they surged into the playoffs.
"Looking back from where we were a couple months ago, I think we've played a lot of good hockey," said St. Louis forward Ryan Reaves.
The Blues realize, however, they will have to continue to play well in their final five games -- in an eight-day span -- if they want to finish in the third spot and not simply be satisfied with reaching the playoffs for the sixth consecutive season.
"That was goal number one," coach Mike Yeo, who replaced Ken Hitchcock on Feb. 1, told NHL.com. "We're there now. It's something that we should be very pleased about. Now we want to make sure that we're on top of our game and we're in a good spot when we go in."
The Blues might be banged up for Sunday's game. They recalled forward Kenny Agostino and defenseman Petteri Lindbohm from Chicago of the AHL on Saturday under emergency conditions, meaning a couple of players must have been hurt in Friday night's game.
One player who definitely was hurt and had to leave that game was defenseman Robert Bortuzzo, who suffered an upper-body injury. The team did not practice Saturday, so it was unknown which forward might have to miss Sunday's game.
The Predators could be without forward James Neal. He was scratched from Saturday's game because of an upper-body injury he suffered Thursday night.
