from Jeff Gordon of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch,

“This is the team we want to take on the journey,” Hitchcock said. “We’re healthy, we’ll be 100 percent going into the playoffs, which is completely different from last year. We had no idea up until actual game time who was going to play. Now we know. We have choices.”

Now we will see if the Blues can find strength in numbers. The Minnesota Wild present a stern test after finishing the season on a tear.

If the Blues survive, either the Chicago Blackhawks or Nashville Predators would loom next. You know what the Blackhawks have done to this team in recent years.

The challenge will be formidable, as always. To advance through an extremely challenging playoff bracket, the Blues must establish brisk tempo and crisp execution immediately.

They must sustain that high level of play shift after shift and then build on it, becoming better and better as the challenges become greater.

Scorers have to check and checkers have to score. Blunders and breaks decide these games, so the Blues must force their opponent into mistakes while limiting their own.

And when they get a break — a funny hop, a good bounce, whatever — they must capitalize. They must find the back of the net, not the protective screen behind the net.

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