The St. Louis Blues aim for their fourth straight victory and eighth win in nine tries when they host the Buffalo Sabres on Jan. 21. The Blues come into the game with 62 points, second-most in the NHL behind the Central Division-leading Detroit Red Wings.
St. Louis has 20 wins at home, the most in the NHL. They are riding a 14-game points streak at home, a franchise record for the Blues.
The Sabres aren't so fortunate. They are 8-14-0 on the road, one of the worst in the NHL. The Sabres are 24th in the NHL in scoring with 113 goals. The Blues aren't much better offensively with just 116 tallies.
But the difference is in the defense. St. Louis is second in the league in giving up goals with just 88. Buffalo is fifth-worst in the NHL by giving up 142 goals to their opponents.
In their most recent game, the Sabres lost the Winnipeg Jets by a score of 4-1 on Jan. 19. It was the 11th-straight road loss for the Sabres who started out the season so well. Buffalo has played just three games at home in January, two of them wins. The Sabres are in a brutal part of their schedule as they have seven games in a row on the road.
Every loss in January on the road has been by two goals or more. The Central Division hasn't been kind to Buffalo. The Detroit Red Wings pasted them 5-0 back on Jan. 16. Two nights later, the Chicago Blackhawks won 6-2.
If the pattern holds, St. Louis will win at least 3-0 or 4-1. If the goalkeeping holds up as it has been, the Blues should be able to handle the 11th-seeded team in the Eastern Conference. Buffalo has just 43 points and are 18 points behind the Boston Bruins in the Northeast Division.
The Blues need a victory for two reasons. First is that they need to keep pace in the Central Division. No team is going to give them a break. Second is that the nice home schedule ends after January. The Blues have a majority of their games on the road in February and March, so they need to amass as many wins as possible before playing more difficult road games.
William Browning was born in St. Louis and has been a lifelong Blues fan.
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