The Blues have no game in between, so Tuesday is next on their schedule, and they'll have stewed on that Carolina loss for 3 days. Pyotr Kochetkov stopped 24 shots in a 4-0 Hurricanes win and St. Louis was shut out for the first time all season. Joel Hofer made 35 saves just to keep it at 4. A loss like that says more about the skaters than the goalie. Hofer opened the season with a 25-save shutout in Dallas, and he's been the most reliable thing about this team.
St. Louis is 5-5-1 and has been streaky. It won back-to-back home games over Winnipeg and Vegas, including a 6-2 win over the Golden Knights, then scored nothing against Carolina. Montreal is the reverse: almost every game is a coin flip. Four of the Canadiens' last 5 were decided by 1 goal, and they've won and lost those about evenly. A team that lives in 4-3 games is a tough matchup for a home team that has gone quiet in front of the net.
The Blues' injury list is mostly on the blue line. Torey Krug is on long-term injured reserve with an ankle injury, Tyler Tucker is weeks into his recovery from knee surgery, and Logan Mailloux is on IR as well. That's a lot of missing defensemen in front of a goalie who just faced 35 shots. Montreal has spent 2 weeks scoring off chaos without its top center, and whether that holds up in St. Louis or Winnipeg exposes it first is the thing to watch at 7:00 PM CT.