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Blues-Red Wings Preview
Associated Press

The St. Louis Blues continue to get contributions from nearly everyone they put on the ice, and with it, their best start to a season in 15 years.

St. Louis will try for its fifth straight win on Friday night when it visits the Detroit Red Wings, who will be looking to avenge their worst season-opening loss in over half a century.

The Blues (6-1-0) can match their 7-1-0 start from the 1997-98 season with a win. After the team's only loss of the season to Chicago on Jan. 22, they've responded with four straight victories, including a 4-1 win at Columbus on Thursday.

St. Louis tallied three goals in the game's first 14 minutes. All four scores came from a different player, and seven players recorded an assist.

It was another example of offensive depth for the Blues, who have three players with at least four goals and five others with at least four assists.

"That's what our whole team is about," said defenseman Barret Jackman, who scored his second goal less than three minutes into the game. "We're not a team that relies on three or six guys. It's going to be a team effort every night. Some guys put the puck in the net one night and it's going to be picked up by other guys another night."

Rookie Vladimir Tarasenko leads the team - and all first-year players - with five goals after scoring St. Louis' third goal Thursday. The Blues' first-round pick in the 2010 draft, Tarasenko also has four assists in his first seven games.

Detroit (3-2-1) has won two of three since starting 1-2-0, which included a 6-0 loss to St. Louis on Jan. 19 that was the Red Wings' worst season-opening defeat since 1958.

They notched a 4-1 win over Dallas on Tuesday behind two goals from Valtteri Filppula and Pavel Datsyuk's two assists.

Though the Red Wings have been outscored 4-0 in the first period this season, the team's penalty kill continues to improve.

Detroit gave up six goals on the opponents' 12 power-play opportunities in the first two games, including four on five chances against St. Louis. Coach Mike Babcock's squad has allowed two on 18 chances over four games since.

The Red Wings were 18th in the league last year, successfully defending 81.8 percent of opponents' power plays.

"I really like the direction that it's going," Babcock told the club's official website. "We still are making some mistakes, like we made a huge mistake in Chicago, gave up a freebie. You can't do that. We're a work-in-progress. We're spending a lot of time on specialty teams, an inordinate amount of time, actually. ... We have to have top 10 specialty teams, not bottom 10."

Detroit forward Darren Helm likely won't play until next week after missing two straight games with a back ailment.

The Red Wings won the teams' final four meetings last season before their opening-night matchup. St. Louis had tallied just five goals in those four contests before scoring six in the opener. Detroit has won three straight and six of seven meetings at Joe Louis Arena.




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WESTERN CONFERENCE
  TEAM GP W L OT GF GA PTS
1 p - CHI 48 36 7 5 155 102 77
2 y - ANA 48 30 12 6 140 118 66
3 y - VAN 48 26 15 7 127 121 59
4 x - STL 48 29 17 2 129 115 60
5 x - LAK 48 27 16 5 133 118 59
6 x - SJS 48 25 16 7 124 116 57
7 x - DET 48 24 16 8 124 115 56
8 x - MIN 48 26 19 3 122 127 55
9 CBJ 48 24 17 7 120 119 55
10 PHX 48 21 18 9 125 131 51
11 DAL 48 22 22 4 130 142 48
12 EDM 48 19 22 7 125 134 45
13 CGY 48 19 25 4 128 160 42
14 NSH 48 16 23 9 111 139 41
15 COL 48 16 25 7 116 152 39

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