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Red-hot Blues host struggling Stars

Jan 2, 2011 - 4:40 PM (Sports Network) - The streaking St. Louis Blues will try to record a sixth consecutive victory tonight when they host the struggling Dallas Stars at Scottrade Center.

The Blues are in the midst of their longest winning streak since posting a season-high seven victories in a row from Oct. 22-Nov. 7. However, St. Louis went just 6-11-3 in the 20 games in between the two hot stretches.

The recent surge has helped place St. Louis back in the middle of the Western Conference playoff race. With 45 points, the Blues are tied with Los Angeles and Colorado for the conference's fifth seed.

"It's a good feeling," said Blues forward Alex Steen said. "It's a long year. We've had our ups and downs. We started off really hot, we were first overall in the league for a while, then fell down. Now we're climbing back up. We've got to find a way to maintain this, now."

St. Louis needed to hold off a late charge by Phoenix in its most recent win, a 4-3 home victory on Friday night. Steen scored the eventual game-winning goal early in the third period when he tallied to give the Blues a 4-0 lead, but the Coyotes ended the game with three unanswered scores.

Brad Boyes, Erik Johnson and Alex Pietrangelo all scored for St. Louis, while Barret Jackman added two assists. Jaroslav Halak stopped 30 shots for the win.

Tonight's tilt marks the conclusion of a five-game homestand for the Blues, who have an excellent 14-4-2 record as the host this season.

While the Blues have gotten themselves back on track recently, the Stars have fallen on hard times. Dallas has dropped four of its last five games after posting a 13-3-3 in its previous 19 outings.

The Stars still enter tonight as a first-place team, but Dallas is just one-point ahead San Jose for the Pacific Division lead.

However, the Blues have not fared well this year against the Stars and will try to avoid getting swept in the four-game season series tonight. Dallas had lost six out of eight against St. Louis before winning all three meetings so far this season.

Dallas has still lost three of five and seven of its last 10 games in St. Louis.

The Stars were dealt a second straight loss Friday against visiting Vancouver, dropping a 4-1 decision to the Canucks. The Stars wound up being outscored 11-4 in a two-game homestand against first-place clubs Detroit and Vancouver.

Cory Schneider had a stellar 44-save performance to lead the Canucks to the win Friday at American Airlines Center. Kevin Bieksa, Daniel Sedin and Henrik Sedin each had a goal and an assist for Vancouver.

Brenden Morrow tallied the lone goal for the Stars, while Kari Lehtonen made just 10 saves on 14 shots before getting pulled in favor of Andrew Raycroft in the second period. Raycroft stopped all eight shots he saw.

"We let some soft ones in where we weren't battling hard enough in front," Morrow said. "We made it tough on our goalie."

The Stars have won four straight on the road and are kicking off a two-game trip tonight. Dallas is 10-7-1 overall as the visiting team this season.