The difference between good and great is slim. Peter Deboer knows this and said as much after the Sharks game against the Ducks on Tuesday night. A slight mistake led to a shorthanded goal, the tiny difference between a win and a loss. After suffering their first regulation loss in quite a while, the Sharks are going to face a stiff test in the St. Louis Blues.

The Blues haven’t had much luck getting their offense going as of late and have had Brian Elliott bail them out more often than not. It is a befuddling time for the team as they have a lot of offensive talent. Names like Tarasenko, Stastny and Steen are consistent performers and keep the team afloat during tough times like this. In addition to the “name” forwards, they also employ defensemen like Shattenkirk and Pietrangelo as well. These players all have built reputations around this league but with the Blues lack of success in the postseason, does that make them all underperformers? You don’t ever know which Blues team will show up, as a fan it must be frustrating but as an outsider it couldn’t be more fascinating.

Which Blues team are the Sharks going to face?

Tale Of The Tape

	@
26-19-4	Record	29-16-8
2nd in Pacific	Rank	3rd in Central
52.6%	Score-Adj. Fenwick	52.2%
100	PDO	100.1
22.1	PP%	19.2
79.9	PK%	85.5

5PM PDT | Scottrade Center | St. Louis, Missouri

TV: CSN-CA, FS-MW, NHL.TV | Radio: SJSharks.com, 98.5 KFOX

Know Your Enemy: St. Louis Game Time

Projected Sharks Lineup

Tomas Hertl – Joe Thornton – Joe Pavelski

Matt Nieto – Patrick Marleau – Joel Ward

Joonas Donskoi – Logan Couture – Tommy Wingels

Melker Karlsson – Dainius Zubrus – Chris Tierney

Marc Edouard Vlasic – Justin Braun

Paul Martin – Brent Burns

Brenden Dillon – Dylan DeMelo

Martin Jones

Alex Stalock

Projected Blues Lineup

Alexander Steen – David Backes – Patrik Berglund

Robby Fabbri – Jori Lehtera – Troy Brouwer

Magnus Paajarvi – Paul Stastny – Vladimir Tarasenko

Scottie Upshall – Kyle Brodziak – Dmitrij Jaskin

Jay Bouwmeester – Alex Pietrangelo

Joel Edmunson – Kevin Shattenkirk

Carl Gunnarsson – Colton Parayko

Brian Elliott

Jake Allen

Last Meeting

The Blues and Sharks have yet to face off this year but the last time they met was a shellacking courtesy of the Blues. Jaden Schwartz had three assists on the evening and Paul Stastny had a two point evening with a goal and assist. Luckily for Sharks fans Schwartz was ruled out for Thursday and won’t see ice time until Saturday.

Storylines

• Joe Pavelski has six points in the last five games. Will it continue?
• How will the Sharks rebound from their first regulation loss since January 7th?
• Blues haven’t scored more than two goals in a game since January 18th, will the goal scoring drought continue?/