ST. LOUIS -- Wait, the puck drops when?
Oh, my, it's an 11:08 a.m. Central time faceoff for the Penguins and Blues and however many fans can crawl out of bed or duck out of church to make it to Scottrade Center. That's 12:08 p.m. back in Pittsburgh, of course, which is still crazy early for hockey watchers.
It's happening, as one might expect, because NBC insisted on the hour to accommodate a national broadcast that wouldn't overlap with the PyeongChang Olympics later in the day.
And yeah, it's definitely happening.
Three keys to victory:
1. Eat, sleep, set the alarm.
“Um ... it’s an odd time," Mike Sullivan mused Saturday after practice at the Scottrade Center. "But it is what it is. Both teams gotta play. So all things are equal. I said to the players on the ice that it’s kind of appropriate that all the dads are here for this. It kind of takes you back to your youth hockey games when you were at the rink at 8 in the morning. Maybe they'll come with their skate-guards on.”
He was referring to the Penguins' annual fathers trip, which concludes today.
Turning slightly more serious, Sullivan also stressed to his players to eat and sleep properly, in addition to thinking about managing their pregame routine. Neither team will have a morning skate.
"Adjust the routine to make sure you're ready to play when the puck drops. But again, St. Louis has to play at 11, too."
2. Brace for more.
The Stars were hot, on a 9-2-1 roll, and the Blues are almost as hot, on an 8-3 roll of their own and fresh off beating the Jets in Winnipeg, 5-2, to become the first visitor to win in regulation at MTS Place since mid-December. And just before that, they annihilated the Avalanche, 6-1.
"It's contagious," St. Louis coach and old friend Mike Yeo was telling reporters in Winnipeg. "We're fighting for each other right now."
Yeah. Here we go again.
The only secret to the Blues' success is that they're just so balanced across the board: Their 34-20-3 record is the NHL's seventh-best, their goal total of 163 is 11th, their goals-against of 143 is fourth. The only real shortcoming is the power play, 28th at 16.1 percent, but there's plenty enough talent at hand for that to change in a single afternoon.
If there's a key within that, it's to move the puck quickly out of the defensive zone. St. Louis is fifth-best at shot suppression, allowing 30.3 per game, and Yeo achieves that mostly with a fearsome forecheck. In Winnipeg, they pounded the faster, more skilled Jets deep in their zone and, through that, held them to 22 shots.
Ryan Reaves knows all about that, since St. Louis was his original team.
"Just so many good hockey players, all playing with a purpose," he told me. "I'm looking forward to it, both for myself and to see some friends but also because I think it'll be a good hockey game."
3. That 91 guy can hurt you.
Yes, this is an exact copy-and-paste of the above subhead from my Dallas file, only now it's about Vladimir Tarasenko, not Tyler Seguin. (Who did go on to hurt the Penguins, both in regulation and the shootout.)
The league's most effortless sniper had gone three games in a row without a point before scoring twice in Winnipeg, and the latter is much more the norm. He's got 23 goals, built on a shot total of 225 that's the highest of any NHL forward and trails only San Jose defenseman Brent Burns, plus a 10.2 percent conversion rate on those attempts.
What makes him that much more dangerous is that he can finish from anywhere: far out, severe angles, in tight with tips ... you name it.
These are the two in Winnipeg, the first pinging off the bar from distance, the second a body contortion for a bounce off the end boards:
"We're all really excited about how we're playing," Tarasenko said in Winnipeg. "When you keep doing the right things, the goals will come. It feels good. We can celebrate now, but we have to forget about it flying home because we have Pittsburgh next."
It sure doesn't hurt that Tarasenko's been supported by Brayden Schenn's breakout, Jaden Schwartz's maturity and Paul Stastny's consistency up front, plus all the dynamism Alex Pietrangelo offers on defense. The latter might have been St. Louis' best player way back in the Blues' season-opening 5-4 overtime win at PPG Paints Arena.
Sounds a lot like Dallas, huh?
Here's today's live file.