Q’s Cuties: Blues vs Kings 12-15

Welcome to tonight’s cutie watch!  I apologize for my lack of dedication lately, we have a lot going on with our family and my brain is literally fried.  I’m trying to keep up with things, so hopefully I get my plans for BNZ back on track.

The Blues are coming off another big (5-2) loss in Detroit, and have lost another player to injury.  Erik Johnson is the latest Blue to go down with an injury.  While he is out for tonight, fans are left hanging until sometime later today on how severe his injury is.  Personally, I’m losing hope in a “good” season, and a “great” season is pretty much out the window.  If Johnson is out long term, and depending on the recoveries of Polak and Pietrangelo, the Blues probably won’t be able keep up with the rest of the Western Conference.  Not that we aren’t seeing talent in the guys being called up from Peoria, but with a defense of mostly AHLers and three of our top forwards sitting out the Blues can’t hope to be the winning team we saw at the beginning of the season.  Tonight is their first meet-up with the Kings.

Can this cutie fill a hole in the Blues line up?

Here’s who I’ll be keeping my eye on:

Nikita Nikitin #64:  This cutie is the newest “call-up” for the Blues, and is expected to be replacing Erik Johnson in tonight’s game.  Although he has no points and stands at a minus-8 for the Blues in the 12 games he played when he joined the team after injury, Nikitin has one goal and is a plus-1 in his 4 games with the Rivermen,  Fans must remember that Nikitin has been a “replacement” for an injured player for all 12 of his NHL games, and many of those games have been after losing Perron and Oshie to injury.  During the losing streak he played in, being a minus-1 in in 4 games and only having 2 “worse” games shouldn’t be looked at as being too bad- the Blues have had many multiple goal losses after sustaining injury after injury.  Look for this cutie to be a more defensive-minded defenseman; he isn’t likely to be the one on the blue line taking lots of shots.

Kings Cutie to Watch: The Kings are 17-10-1 this season.  They are currently on a 5 game winning streak, with their last win coming on the road against Detroit.  However, they have only won 6 of their 14 road games this year.  Their power play and penalty kill stats are pretty similar to the Blues, so in the case of special teams these two teams seem to be pretty well matched.  The Blues have won the last three meetings with the Kings, but injuries to the Blues may make a victory a bit harder tonight.

This cute King has been hot in goal

Here’s who I’ll be watching:

Jonathan Quick #32, Goaltender:  This cutie has certainly been hot this season!  Quick has won 15 of his 21 games, and has won 4 of his last 5.  Quick has 2 shut outs and a 1.83 goals against average.  He has stopped 547 of the 586 shots he has faced.  To compare, Halak has stopped 585 of the 640 shots he has faced and has a 2.31 goals against average.  Quick is definitely one of the “kings” of this team- his net minding has helped the Kings get where they are today.  Keep an eye on this cutie to stop a lot of what is thrown at him- with a .933 save percentage he sits in 3rd in the league.