The St. Louis Blues will try to extend their winning streak high five games when they visit the lowly Columbus Blue Jackets tonight at Nationwide Arena.
St. Louis is in the midst of its fifth four-game win streak of the 2011-12 campaign, but the club last won five in a row from Dec. 21-31 of last season. Ken Hitchcock's team has a 13-2-2 record in its last 17 games and has built a five-point edge over Nashville for the fourth seed in the Western Conference.
The Blues are also just three points in back of Detroit for first place in the Central Division, Western Conference and NHL. St. Louis enters today with two games in hand to use over the Red Wings.
Meanwhile, Columbus has been going through a nightmare of a season and is last in the NHL with 38 points -- 11 less than its closest competition in the league standings.
The Blues are 2-0 against Columbus this season, winning one at home and one on the road while recording eight goals over the two meetings. St. Louis has taken five straight in the series overall and three in a row at Nationwide Arena.
St. Louis last played on Sunday, when it rode goaltender Jaroslav Halak to a 3-0 victory over the visiting San Jose Sharks. Halak made 25 saves to record his sixth shutout of the season and 22nd of his career. Five of the Czech goaltender's shutouts this year have come over his last 10 starts.
Alex Pietrangelo finished with two goals and an assist and David Perron also scored for the Blues, who extended their franchise-record home points streak to 19 games (16-0-3). Perron has six goals and an assist over his last four games and was named the NHL's Third Star last week.
St. Louis has won its last two road games, but is still just 10-11-3 as the guest this year compared to a stellar 24-3-4 mark at home.
On the injury front, the Blues have played the last five games without Jason Arnott (shoulder) and fellow forward Matt D'Agostini has sat out three in a row with a head injury. Neither player is expected to be available tonight.
The Blue Jackets had won three of four before getting dealt a 5-3 loss by Anaheim on Sunday in the opener of a three-game homestand. Corey Perry recorded his second hat trick of the season to lead the Ducks past Columbus, which fell to 9-15-3 as the host this year.
Fedor Tyutin had a goal and an assist in the loss, while Aaron Johnson and Antoine Vermette scored also for the Blue Jackets. Steve Mason stopped 30- of-35 shots in defeat.
"They executed extremely well, we made some mistakes and ended up paying for them," said Blue Jackets interim head coach Todd Richards.
Columbus captain Rick Nash enters tonight on a five-game point streak. He has one goal and five helpers during the run.
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