The St. Louis Blues are favored to beat the San Jose Sharks on Thursday night at Enterprise Center, with puck drop set for 8 p.m. ET and San Jose missing Macklin Celebrini because of a lower-body injury.
That absence matters because Celebrini has been involved in five of the Sharks' nine goals this season, a share that underlines how much of their early attack has run through one player. He also factored on 46.2% of his team’s tallies last year, a rate that trails only Connor McDavid’s 48.9% among NHL players in the data provided. For a Sharks side already giving up four goals per game, that kind of loss is hard to absorb on the road.
The Blues have reason to like the matchup beyond the injury report. Joel Hofer has been one of the steadiest early goaltenders in the league, ranking eighth in goals saved above expected with 2.7, while San Jose’s own goaltending numbers have been rough, with Yaroslav Askarov at a 3.86 goals-against average and a.862 save percentage through three games. St. Louis is also listed as a 59% favorite, with the recommendation stretching to 61%, even though the Blues are not supposed to be a great team this season.
That is the part that makes this game worth a closer look. The Blues are not being framed as a dominant club, but they are still getting the market edge because the Sharks have been leaky at even strength, slow to defend, and thin without their most productive skater. San Jose is allowing 45.68 shot attempts and 33.77 scoring chances per game, and its penalty kill is at 75% while spending nearly seven minutes a night short-handed. Those are the kinds of margins that can turn a modest favorite into a comfortable one.
Connor McMichael is the other name that jumps off the page for St. Louis. He has three points in three games, leads the Blues with eight shots, five high-danger chances and 1.24 individual expected goals, and he followed that with five shots on net and two points against the Blackhawks in St. Louis' last game. He also has one power-play goal, a team-high four power-play shots and 0.77 individual expected goals on the man advantage, giving the Blues a direct route to pressure a Sharks group that has already struggled to keep games under control. The next question is not whether the Blues can create looks; it is whether San Jose can stay close long enough to make Celebrini’s absence feel less decisive.
