The Blues aren't practicing on Friday, giving themselves an off-day in the midst of four consecutive days without a game. Even a coach like Ken Hitchcock who loves to practice can see the benefit, especially at this time of year, of not overworking his players. The Blues had a longer than normal practice on Thursday, which included a shootout competition (no doubt a byproduct of the team not scoring on its first 10 tries against Ottawa), and will practice again on Saturday before flying to Minnesota for Sunday's game.

While Tuesday's win moved the Blues even in points with the other top teams in the Central, by the time the Blues finish their game on Sunday in St. Paul, the Blackhawks will have played three times. They moved two points ahead of the Blues and Dallas with a win over Detroit on Wednesday but couldn't make it four on Thursday, losing to Boston.) And when the sun rises on Saturday morning, the top three teams in the Central will be, for the first time in a long time it would seem, be even in the number of games played. Gone will be the dreaded games in hand.

Once even, the teams will never be far apart again. Teams will briefly have played one game more or less, but the gap will never be two the rest of the season.