The St. Louis Blues drag both a losing streak and a poor head-to-head trend into their rivalry game against the Detroit Red Wings on Wednesday night. The Blues are a consensus -160 home favorite while the Red Wings come back at +144 with a 5.0-goal total at sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.com.
While St. Louis is the moneyline favorite, it is 0-7 in its last seven games, including an 8-3 loss against the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday. The Blues, according to the OddsShark NHL Database, are also just 3-7 in their last 10 regular-season home games against the Red Wings. Detroit is also an impressive 6-3 over its nine most recent road games.
The big variable involves how each team responds after core forwards were shipped away at the NHL trade deadline on Monday. The Red Wings will be playing their first game since trading Tomas Tatar to the Vegas Golden Knights, while the Blues have a game under their belts since Paul Stastny was whisked away to the Winnipeg Jets. The Blues are also 6-4 in their last 10 games when they were playing for the second day in a row.
Detroit, which is 26-26-10 overall in the NHL standings, including 13-13-2 on the road, is just hanging around in the Eastern Conference wild card race. They will have a new look on their top line with center Dylan Larkin (team-high 47 points) and winger Andreas Athanasiou now skating with Tyler Bertuzzi, who is more of an agitator. Veteran defenseman Mike Green (neck) will not play.
Jimmy Howard is likely to start in goal for Detroit, which is an even 5-5 over its last 10 road games. The Red Wings are 3-4-1 in Howard’s last eight starts against the Blues.
St. Louis is 34-25-4, including 19-14-0 on home ice at Scottrade Center, but they have been porous defensively with 19 goals against across their last five games. The tailspin does not stem from a lack of talent with a team that has center Brayden Schenn, right wing Vladimir Tarasenko (two goals against Minnesota) and left wing Jaden Schwartz each with at least 40 points.
Blues goalie Jake Allen was pulled during Tuesday’s game against Minnesota. For what it might be worth, backup Carter Hutton had a shutout in his only career start against Detroit. That could justify a hunch play on St. Louis ending their slide.
The total has gone under in nine of the Red Wings’ last 10 road games as the underdog. The total has gone under in six of the Blues’ last eight home games as the favorite.
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