St. Louis Blues vs. Florida Panthers: Prediction, Preview, Picks & Odds - 11/26/2022

Time: 6:30 p.m. ET

Venue: FLA Live Arena, Sunrise, FL

Where to watch: BSFL, BSMW

DraftKings: Panthers -195, Blues +165

FanDuel: Panthers -196, Blues +160

BetMGM: Panthers -189, Blues +155

Caesars: Panthers -195, Blues +162

Blues: 10-10-0

Panthers: 10-8-2

Blues: lost 5-2 at Lightning

Panthers: won 5-2 vs. Bruins

Well, it was fun while it lasted for the St. Louis Blues. you're going a long winning streak, you feel great about yourself after having a long losing streak, you beat some teens that give you the confidence that you should be able to hang in the central division and eventually win a game maybe two in the playoffs. And then you go on the road to face Buffalo and Tampa Bay and get run out of the barn both times. Not to mention, a combined score of 11-4 just adding insult to injury.

One night after the Blues got ran out of Tampa by the lightning, St. Louis now has to play a second game of a back-to-back on the road in the state of Florida, this time against the Florida Panthers who are coming off their biggest win of the season over the Boston Bruins at home. Let's call it how it is right now. St. Louis sent out Jordan binnington for this game against Tampa Bay. Completely understandable, they are the defending Stanley Cup champions from the two years prior to last year, and they are the ones that are sort of still the measuring stick when evaluating where teams are in terms of a long-term championship building aspect.

The poor goalie stood no chance against Tampa Bay, who has started to find their stride and is scaring everyone in the league right now. If you had that thought racing in your mind I apologize but that's the way that it goes sometimes. The Blues lost 5-2 on Friday for their second straight loss and suddenly now those two losses back-to-back are starting to make you wonder well if it's gonna be a streaky type of season all year for the Blues, I don't know if I wanna be a part of that because then all of a sudden if I'm making the choice on who I think should win in a playoff series and that team shocks everybody like it shocked Minnesota last year, then I really don't wanna part of that action.

I think what we're seeing right now from the Blues is an all time understanding of ridiculousness at the right time period what do I mean by that? When you look at how the Blues started the season with a 3-0 record and we're taking out fools left and right, then they go on this long losing streak of which no one could ever understand because it's not like the Blues absolutely changed the way that they play. But when you have a young player like Jordan kyrou who continues to break out and looks like a tremendous stud for the Blues, and then you add in the recent surges from the likes of Ryan O'Reilly and Robert Thomas and Pavel Buchnevich, there's a lot of things that when you look at this St. Louis team you have to absolutely like.

But then there's also things that you need to like about the Florida Panthers as well, knowing that they have been constantly impressive for the last couple of years period and now that they're trying to figure out where the goalie situation is heading between Spencer Knight and Sergey Bobrovsky, there is a lot of intrigue coming from Florida right now when you're looking at the situations of how they're trying to integrate the top tiered players on that team to suddenly speaking a average season because they're trying to get to used to Paul Maurice’s new system.

The fact that the Blues are coming off a second night of a back-to-back, I really don't trust them in this spot. This is a really bad stretch to come out of Thanksgiving with, with two Stanley Cup contenders, albeit in the same state but ultimately not the best type of ordeal. Florida has shown it can be really good teams, it has also shown that it can struggle against mid tier teams. But the Panthers get this one done. Panthers win 4-2

Blues are 27-15 on the road when the total is 6 or more the last three years.

Panthers are 120-147 off a home win by two goals or more since 1996.

Blues are 17-22 against non-conference opponents the last two years.

Blues:

Brandon Saad -- Ryan O'Reilly -- Vladimir Tarasenko

Pavel Buchnevich -- Robert Thomas -- Jordan Kyrou

Ivan Barbashev -- Brayden Schenn -- Noel Acciari

Alexey Toropchenko -- Nikita Alexandrov -- Tyler Pitlick

Torey Krug -- Justin Faulk

Nick Leddy -- Colton Parayko

Niko Mikkola -- Robert Bortuzzo

Thomas Greiss

Panthers:

Carter Verhaeghe -- Aleksander Barkov -- Matthew Tkachuk

Eetu Luostarinen -- Sam Bennett -- Colin White

Nick Cousins -- Anton Lundell -- Sam Reinhart

Ryan Lomberg -- Eric Staal -- Patric Hornqvist

Gustav Forsling -- Aaron Ekblad

Marc Staal -- Brandon Montour

Josh Mahura -- Radko Gudas

Sergei Bobrovsky