PREGAME BY THE NUMBERS: Bruins visit Blues at 8PM

The Boston Bruins close out their road trip against the St-Louis Blues tonight, trying to shake off a one-goal loss in Carolina.

Puck drop is 8:00 p.m. EDT in St-Louis, where the Bruins play game 2 of 2 on this road trip.

Here's a thread nobody planned. Both teams just lost to the Carolina Hurricanes, and both come in with one day of rest.

Boston's loss was a 2-1 grinder where Sebastian Aho scored the winner. St-Louis got run 4-0 in its own building.

Bruins sit atop the Atlantic while the Blues scramble for footing

Boston is 9-3-1 and sits first in the Atlantic Division, second in the East. That's a 4-point cushion on the first team outside a playoff spot.

October has been kind to them. They are 8-3-1 this month, with a +18 goal differential over those 12 games.

St-Louis is a different story. The Blues are 5-6-1, sixth in the Central and 10th in the West, sitting 2 points behind the last wild card spot.

They have been scoring in bunches or not at all. A 6-2 win over the Vegas Knights was followed by two straight shutout losses at home.

Read the table and one line jumps out. Boston owns a +21 goal differential, while St-Louis sits at -2.

Now the odd part. The Bruins generate 25.4 shots per game, fewer than the 28.0 they allow.

That's a team squeezing a lot of goals out of a modest shot count. It's like winning a poker night on a short stack. Admirable, until the cards cool off.

The Blues are home for game 5 of 5 on this homestand, so the road-weary angle cuts both ways. Boston has played away from home all week.

Special teams: Boston's power play meets a top-10 penalty kill

The Bruins' power play sits 13th in the league at 22.0%. St-Louis is a hair behind at 21.9%, good for 14th.

The real tension is the other side of the ledger. The Blues' penalty kill is 7th at 84.4%, while Boston's own PK ranks 16th at 80.4%.

So who gets the better of the special-teams swing? Probably whoever stays out of the box.

St-Louis has scored 3 short-handed goals this season. Boston has given up 2, so careless pinches at the offensive blue line carry a price.

Goaltending: Swayman leans on a workload, Binnington struggles

Jeremy Swayman has started 10 of Boston's 13 games, and he made 28 saves on 30 shots in the Carolina loss. He has started four of the last five games.

Michael DiPietro has been the occasional relief. He stopped all 28 shots in the 6-0 win over Nashville on October 22.

St-Louis has split the crease, and the split tells a story. Joel Hofer holds the better numbers, while Jordan Binnington has won only one of his four starts.

Binnington's 4.11 GAA is the kind of number that forces a conversation. Hofer last started on October 24 with four days of rest before this game.

Swayman's career numbers against the Blues are respectable on the win-loss side but modest on the save percentage side, at .882 over six games.

Bruins own the recent history against St. Louis

This is the first meeting of the season between these teams. It's game 1 of 2, with the rematch set for December 17 at 7:00 p.m. EST in Boston.

Last season, Boston swept both games and outscored the Blues 10-4. Viktor Arvidsson scored the winner in a 5-2 home win on December 4.

Five days later, Mark Kastelic got the winner in another 5-2 result, this time in St-Louis. Jeremy Swayman made 24 saves on 26 shots that night.

Over the last five meetings, Boston is 3-1-1 and riding a two-game winning streak. Its last win in the series came on December 9, 2025.

Blues injury list is long, Bruins list is empty

According to the latest injury report, updated October 28, the Bruins have no players listed.

St-Louis has five players listed as being on injured reserve. Ross Johnston, listed since October 27, is shown as out until at least October 29 with a lower-body injury.

Dillon Dube, Torey Krug, Logan Mailloux and Tyler Tucker have all been listed since late September or mid-October.

Three things to watch

The Blues' scoring drought. They were blanked in both of their last two home games, which means the offense went 120 minutes without a goal.

Boston's shot volume. The Bruins average 25.4 shots per game, so every power play and every rush chance carries extra weight against a Blues team allowing 27.6.

The Binnington question. His .845 save percentage is the weakest in this matchup, and Boston has beaten St-Louis in each of the last two meetings.

Bruins fans have seen this script on the road before. A division leader takes a hard-fought loss, then faces a team that looks beatable on paper.

But the Blues are desperate, they're at home, and they hate being shut out. Does Boston finish this road trip with a statement or a shrug?

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