The Blues will try to extend their season-high winning streak to four games. They are 0-3 against Detroit this season but have lost twice by a 4-3 score.

Standings:

DET: 63 g/p 41 14 8 90 pts (2 in Conf, 1 in Central), 234 gf, 187 ga, Last 10 6-3-1, Streak Lost 1

STL: 62 g/p 28 26 8 64 pts (12 in Conf, 5 in Central), 173 gf, 181 ga, Last 10 6-2-2, Streak Won 3

Worth noting, at the moment, that DET, CHI, and CBJ are in the playoffs. NSH and STL could be in as well. The Central has, apparently, gone from the Red Wings “punching bag”, to an extremely competitive Division. I don’t know when the last time was when every team in a Division made the playoffs, but I’ll try to hunt that stat down.

Stats (rank):

DET: .714 win% (3), 3.62 g/g (1), 2.94 ga/g (21), 1.25 5-5 f/a (4), 27.4 pp (1) ,77.4 pk (28), 36.0 s/g (1), 27.8 sa/g (5), 55.8 fo% (1).

STL: .516 win% (22), 2.71 g/g (19), 2.84 ga/g (15), 0.90 5-5 f/a (22), 21.0 pp (8), 82.8 pk (9) 27.8 s/g (28), 29.0 sa/g (7), 49.0 fo% (20).

Player Stats:
DET Skaters
Player GP G A PTS +/-
Pavel Datsyuk 62 25 50 75 28
Marian Hossa 61 34 27 61 17
Henrik Zetterberg 58 24 32 56 14
Brian Rafalski 63 8 43 51 14
Jiri Hudler 63 20 29 49 4
Nicklas Lidstrom 60 12 32 44 24
Johan Franzen 52 25 14 39 12
Niklas Kronwall 61 2 36 38 -3
Mikael Samuelsson 62 16 20 36 2
Daniel Cleary 55 12 21 33 4
Valtteri Filppula 63 6 25 31 12
Tomas Holmstrom 40 14 16 30 16
Kris Draper 62 5 9 14 -12
Tomas Kopecky 60 4 9 13 -1
Brett Lebda 48 5 8 13 8
Andreas Lilja 60 2 11 13 13
Kirk Maltby 59 5 6 11 -6
Ville Leino 13 5 4 9 5
Brad Stuart 48 1 7 8 1
Derek Meech 30 2 3 5 -11
Darren Helm 16 0 1 1 -7
Darren McCarty 13 1 0 1 -2
Justin Abdelkader 2 0 0 0 0
Chris Chelios 20 0 0 0 3
Aaron Downey 1 0 0 0 0

DET Goalies:
Player GPI W L OT GAA PCT
Chris Osgood 33 19 5 7 3.26 .880
Ty Conklin 32 22 8 1 2.39 .914
Jimmy Howard 1 0 1 0 4.07 .857

STL Skaters
Player GP G A PTS +/-
Brad Boyes 62 25 26 51 -17
Patrik Berglund 57 17 21 38 15
David Perron 61 9 29 38 8
Keith Tkachuk 60 18 18 36 -9
David Backes 62 18 16 34 -6
Andy McDonald 26 9 17 26 -11
T.J. Oshie 37 9 14 23 10
Carlo Colaiacovo 53 3 19 22 2
Jay McClement 62 11 11 22 -6
Alexander Steen 62 7 15 22 -8
B.J. Crombeen 61 10 8 18 -7
Barret Jackman 62 3 14 17 -12
Paul Kariya 11 2 13 15 1
Brad Winchester 44 10 4 14 -2
Jeff Woywitka 46 1 13 14 -1
Roman Polak 49 1 11 12 -6
Yan Stastny 34 3 4 7 -14
Eric Brewer 28 1 5 6 -14
Mike Weaver 40 0 5 5 -1
Cam Janssen 51 1 3 4 -4
Steve Regier 8 3 1 4 -1
Steve Wagner 22 2 2 4 -5
Dan Hinote 34 1 2 3 -5
Jay McKee 49 1 2 3 0
Cam Paddock 16 2 1 3 -4
Tyson Strachan 27 0 3 3 6
Chris Porter 6 1 1 2 -1
D.J. King 1 0 1 1 0
David Koci 23 0 1 1 3
Alex Pietrangelo 8 0 1 1 0
Trent Whitfield 2 0 1 1 1
Jonas Junland 1 0 0 0 0
Andy Wozniewski 1 0 0 0 0

STL Goalies:
Chris Mason 37 14 16 5 2.33 .921
Manny Legace 29 13 9 2 3.18 .885
Ben Bishop 5 1 1 1 3.19 .890

Injury Report:
DET:
Tomas Holmstrom (RW/LW) Sports hernia (Early March)
Marian Hossa (RW) Neck injury (Day to day)
Andreas Lilja (D) Concussion (Day to day)
Brett Lebda (D) Back injury (Sidelined indefinitely)

STL:
Eric Brewer (D) Upper body injury (Sidelined indefinitely)
Paul Kariya (LW) Hip surgery (Remainder of regular season)
Dan Hinote (W/C) Upper body injury (Day to day)
D.J. King (LW) Shoulder surgery (Remainder of regular season)
Erik Johnson (D) Right knee surgery (Remainder of regular season)

Hot and Not:
DET:
HOT:
Kris Draper (C) 4 pts in last 4 GP
Tomas Kopecky (W/C) 3 pts in last 4 GP

NOT:
Nicklas Lidstrom (D) 0 pts in last 4 GP
Mikael Samuelsson (RW) 0 pts in last 7 GP
Jiri Hudler (RW/LW) 0 pts in last 5 GP
Dan Cleary (LW/RW) 0 pts in last 3 GP
Valtteri Filppula (C/W) 1 pts in last 5 GP
Ty Conklin (G) 1-1-0, 4.30, .886 in last 2 GPI

STL:
HOT:
Patrik Berglund (C) 3 pts in last 2 GP
David Perron (RW/LW) 3 pts in last 3 GP
Jay McClement (C/LW) 3 pts in last 3 GP
T.J. Oshie (C/W) 11 pts in last 14 GP
Chris Mason (G) 2-0-0, 1.01, .971 in last 2 GPI

Jeff Sagarin NHL Ratings: from USAToday.com:

To make predictions for upcoming games, simply compare the RATINGS of
the teams in question and allow an ADDITIONAL .25 goals for the home
team. Thus, for example, a HOME team with a rating of 4.43 would be
favored by .57 goals over a VISITING team having a rating of 4.11
Or a VISITING team with a rating of 4.56 would be favored by .42 goals
over a HOME team having a rating of 3.89

NOTE: Use whatever home advantage is listed in the output below.
In the example just above, a home edge of .25 was shown for
illustrative purposes. The home edge will vary during the season.

NHL 2008-2009 through games of 2009 March 2 Monday
HOME ADVANTAGE= 0.35 RATING W L SCHEDL(RANK) VS top 10 | VS top 16 | ELO_CHESS | PREDICTOR
3 Detroit Red Wings = 4.83 41 22 4.05( 12) 11 7 | 21 12 | 4.83 2 | 4.82 3
19 St. Louis Blues = 3.93 28 34 4.09( 1) 8 14 | 14 21 | 3.85 22 | 4.00 15

Helene St. James from the Detroit Free Press had these notes from Monday practice:

Downey and Ericsson aren’t part of this afternoon’s practice, but they’re meeting the team at the airport for the flight to St. Louis. Mike Babcock said both Ericsson and Downey will play tomorrow. Babcock said he hadn’t decided on his defensive pairings, but the six will be Lidstrom, Rafalski, Kronwall, Stuart, Lebda and Ericsson.

Andreas Lilja missed practice and is out indefinitely. He said he has a concussion and a sore knee.

Marian Hossa practiced, and told me he’ll play Tuesday at St. Loius. Hossa has missed the last two games because of a stiff neck suffered when San Jose’s Ryan Clowe ran into him last Wednesday.

“I don’t feel any pain or dizziness, so it’s good,” Hossa said Monday.

It’s well-established what Downey brings, and given what happened to Lilja, and that Hossa was hurt last Wednesday when he was run into by San Jose’s Ryan Clowe, the Wings clearly feel a need to send a message.

These are the lines from practice – Tomas Holmstrom, though, is still recovering from hernia surgery and isn’t expected back until later this month, so don’t read too much into these combos (especially the bottom two).

Franzen-Datsyuk-Samuelsson
Cleary-Zetterberg-Hossa
Kopecky-Filppula-Hudler
Maltby-Draper-Holmstrom

Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post-Dispatchsays this game may determine if the Blues are Buyers or Sellers at the trade deadline:

Typically on the days leading up to the NHL trading deadline, the actual games themselves can be afterthoughts. But that won’t be the case tonight when the Blues host the Detroit Red Wings on the eve of the deadline.

Any game against the Red Wings is an attention-grabber, but with the Blues inching closer to a playoff position and with the outcome of tonight’s game possibly affecting the club’s deadline strategy, there seems to be a lot riding on the final score.

It may not be a stretch, in fact, to call tonight the Blues’ biggest game since the 2004-05 NHL lockout. . .

With the combination of a win tonight and a handful of losses in the conference, the Blues could close their gap to one point from a playoff spot in the Western Conference.

That’s a dramatic difference from Jan. 15, when the Blues were 10 points behind the eighth-place team in the West. But in their last 20 games, the Blues are 12-3-5 for 29 points, ranking second behind New Jersey’s 32 for the most points in the league during that streak. . .

In the meantime, “we’ve got an angry Detroit coming in,” Murray said.