St. Louis Blues hope to enter holidays on a 6-game win streak

It's a busy NHL Monday with 13 games on the slate. The holiday break is coming up, but first the St. Louis Blues will travel to Los Angeles for a meeting with the Kings. St. Louis is riding a 5-game win streak and desires nothing more than enter the holidays on a high note, while Los Angeles plays at home for the first time after a long road trip.

The Kings go down in Buffalo

The Los Angeles Kings are currently seventh in the Pacific Division. This division isn't one of the strongest divisions of the NHL, so the current place of the Kings can therefore be called slightly disappointing. The Los Angeles hockey team can't rely on a strong goalie tandem like some other teams do, as Jonathan Quick and Jack Campbell are among the least performing goalies of the NHL. Both have around a 3 goals-against average.

The Kings return home from a six game roud trip. They split these games and the ones they lost, they all did with a small margin, so they were anything but a pushover during this recent road rip. Lost Angeles couldn't get it done last Saturday in a matinee game in Buffalo against the Sabres, which they lost 3-2. Dustin Brown's goal came too late to at least let the game go to overtime. The Kings have been performing well at home in the last five weeks, as seven of the last ten home games resulted in a win.

The Blues are confident

The St. Louis Blues were the big surprise of last season. In the second half of the season Craig Berube made a well-oiled machine of his team. From a lost position, the Blues qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs and here it surprised everyone by winning the Stanley Cup for the first time in their franchise history. Also this season St. Louis is doing well again. They have taken over the lead in the Central Division after some excellent results.

The Blues are now riding a five game win streak. They scored twenty times and only had to concede ten goals. The fact that St. Louis performs so well is very impressive with the knowledge that Vladimir Tarasenko has been on the side with an injury for a longer period of time now. In the past successful season the Russian collected 85 points in 102 games. Last Saturday the Blues defeated the San José Sharks with relative ease. Jaden Schwartz showed himself in a positve way once again with one goal and two assists during this 5-2 win.

Blues exted their win streak

The St. Louis Blues are in excellent shape at the moment, Their goaltenders are impressive during the last games and while the Blues don't always play very dominantly hockey, they always work extremely hard. The Kings return to Staples Center after a six game road trip and a the first game on home ice after such a long road trip is always tough. They knew how to make things difficult for their opponents in the last few games, but I don't see this happening against the in shape Blues. With Binnington in net, I see St. Louis extend their win streak to six games.