Tonight the Blues will hit the ice with a new head coach on the bench. Mike Kitchen will coach his first game with the team taking over for Joel Quenneville, who was fired on Tuesday. As is normally the case for a coach who takes over at mid-season, Kitchen has the task of making a bad situation better. The Blues are currently in ninth place in the Western Conference, two points behind Nashville for the final playoff spot with 21 games to go. This evening the Blues visit Colorado, which enters the game with 80 points—that’s just one point behind first-place Detroit. The Blues are winless in their two meetings with the Avalanche. On December 26, they tied 3-3 and Colorado shut out St. Louis 4-0 two weeks ago.
