Blues face Avalanche in final tune-up for playoffs
ST. LOUIS -- The St. Louis Blues will have one goal in the final game of the regular season Sunday night against the Colorado Avalanche.
Don't get anybody hurt.
The outcome of the game will not matter to the Blues, who locked up third place in the Central Division on Saturday night when they won 5-4 in a shootout at Carolina. The Blues will play the Minnesota Wild in the first round of the playoffs for the second time in three years.
"This was something we set our sights on," said coach Mike Yeo. "These last couple months have been quite a run."
The series will be a homecoming for Yeo, who was the coach of the Wild before he was fired last year. He was subsequently hired by the Blues, taking over as the head coach on Feb. 1 when Ken Hitchcock was fired.
"I'm sure it's going to turn into quite a story," Yeo said. "It's funny in sports; these stories seem to have a way of coming around. But for me it's not me against them. It's our group with a real tough opponent in the way of what we're trying to accomplish."
The Wild knocked the Blues out of the playoffs in six games in 2015 after the Blues had won the division title.
"I think it will be important for our coach and important for us, too, because we lost to them a couple years ago," Vladimir Tarasenko told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "It's still in our memories and we want to payback."
Because Sunday night's game won't have a bearing on the standings, the Blues could rest several of their regular players, or at least limit their ice time, to try to guard against an injury that might knock them out for the series against the Wild.
The Blues already are without two key players, center Paul Stastny and defenseman Robert Bortuzzo, because of injuries. It is not known when either will be ready to play.
It is expected that forward Vladimir Sobotka will be in the Blues lineup. He rejoined the team this week after leaving his team in the KHL but was a healthy scratch for Saturday night's game.
Sunday night's game also is basically meaningless for the Avalanche, who will finish the season with the worst record in the NHL. Their 4-3 shootout loss at Dallas Saturday night left them 3-11-1 in their last 15 games.
Joe Sakic, the team's executive vice president, is well aware of how much his team has struggled this season.
"We had a terrible year. Up and down, it was not a good year," Sakic told the Denver Post on Saturday. "Our top guys did not have good years, production-wise. And our goaltending situation, with (Semyon Varlamov) being out, and we might as well say the whole year with his issues, that snowballed.
"You don't forget about this year. You have to learn from this year. No one can say, 'Aw, let's forget about it. Let's start fresh.' The mind-set has to be, 'We have to remember this year, and for especially the players to focus on, 'All right, this summer better be a summer of work to get back to a certain level of play.' "