St. Louis has scored 16 goals across its last three games. Nashville has managed just six over the same stretch, losing all three. That gives the Blues the more encouraging recent scoring story heading into Saturday night’s matchup, but the sportsbook barely separates these teams. Can St. Louis carry that burst into Nashville? A more modest shooting outlook and the expected goalie matchup give bettors reasons to look beyond the recent goal totals.
Recent scoring gives St. Louis a case
The Blues beat Columbus 5-3 and Ottawa 7-2 before losing 5-4 to Minnesota on Thursday. Robert Thomas and Dylan Holloway both scored late against the Wild, although St. Louis had already fallen behind 5-2. The goals are encouraging; needing that late rally is the counterweight.
Nashville’s latest loss had a different shape. Ryan O’Reilly and Steven Stamkos erased a two-goal deficit before the Predators fell 3-2 to San Jose in a shootout Thursday. Stamkos tied it with just 0.8 seconds left in regulation. Nashville found a way to salvage a point, but it still finished with two goals for the third straight game.
That recent scoring contrast is striking, though Nashville’s 2-2-3 record also shows why its losses don’t tell the whole story: three have come beyond regulation. DraftKings’ nearly even moneyline has St. Louis at -115 and Nashville at -105. The Blues are only a slight favorite, a much smaller separation than their recent scoring totals suggest.
Our grades offer another reason to temper the momentum argument: we rate St. Louis’s offense D+ and Nashville’s C, even though the Blues have been scoring more lately. St. Louis has the stronger defensive grade, B- to C. One personnel detail worth watching is Pavel Buchnevich’s availability: the Blues winger is day-to-day for personal reasons.
What the 5.5-goal total asks of this matchup
Five of the Blues’ seven games this season have gone over their posted totals. Flat one-unit Over bets across those seven games returned a historical profit of 2.51 units. Nashville has leaned the other way, with four of its seven games finishing under. Those results came against different thresholds, so tonight’s 5.5 deserves its own look.
Our shot projections put Nashville at about 28 and St. Louis at about 25, with roughly three power-play opportunities apiece. That gives the Predators a modest expected shooting-volume advantage despite their recent scoring struggles. It also offers a reason not to simply carry the Blues’ recent goal totals forward: we don’t project an especially busy shooting night for either team.
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The expected goalies provide another useful check. Across their five most recent appearances this season, Joel Hofer and Juuse Saros have save percentages of .906 and .904, respectively. Their latest outings were quite different, though: Hofer allowed five goals on 38 shots against Minnesota, while Saros stopped 30 of 32 against San Jose. Saros’s latest performance supports a quieter night than St. Louis has recently played, but Hofer’s rough outing is a counterweight at 5.5. Neither goalie’s five-game sample gives much reason to treat his latest result as the template.
The key distinction
St. Louis’s scoring burst is the strongest recent argument in its favor, but the close moneyline leaves little room to treat Nashville as an easy opponent. The Predators have the slight projected edge in shots and come off a strong Saros performance; our offensive grades also favor Nashville despite its recent struggles. The practical distinction is between goals already scored and the shooting outlook for this matchup: backing a repeat of the Blues’ surge means expecting them to keep converting a relatively modest volume. At 5.5, Nashville’s ability to move beyond its recent two-goal output is the other important swing factor, rather than simply assuming St. Louis will supply another high-scoring game.
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