Avs, Blues collide in St. Louis

Hockey Betting Lines

02/11/2012 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Colorado Avalanche will try to boost their playoff chances against a tough opponent, as they visit the St. Louis Blues for tonight's clash at Scottrade Center.

The Avalanche enter today tied with Dallas for the ninth seed in the West and the clubs are just one point behind Phoenix for the conference's eighth and final postseason berth. Minnesota and Calgary are also just one point behind the Avs and Stars in the crowded Western Conference playoff picture.

Colorado had lost five straight (0-4-1) before closing a four-game homestand with consecutive wins over Chicago and Carolina. Friday's win over the Hurricanes was a dramatic one, as Ryan O'Reilly scored the game-winner with 1.2 seconds left in overtime to give the Avalanche a 4-3 win at the Pepsi Center.

With time winding down, O'Reilly picked the pocket of Justin Faulk in the neutral zone and skated the other way. From the left wing, O'Reilly cranked a shot that beat Cam Ward to the left side for the win.

"I looked up and saw four seconds on the clock," said O'Reilly. "I managed to get the shot off on time and got lucky with it."

Paul Stastny had a goal and an assist for the Avalanche, while Jean-Sebastien Giguere stopped 39 shots in the win.

Colorado will now play four straight and six of its next seven games on the road, where it is 12-12-2 this season.

The Blues, meanwhile, have won three of their last four games and enter tonight five points behind Detroit for the top spot in the Central Division and Western Conference. St. Louis is also just two points ahead of Nashville for the West's fourth seed and second place in the Central.

St. Louis won its second straight game Thursday in New Jersey, as T.J. Oshie scored the only goal in the shootout to give the Blues a 4-3 victory over the Devils at Prudential Center.

The Blues found themselves down by a 3-2 score midway through the second period, when Brian Elliot relieved an ineffective Jaroslav Halak in net. Elliott stopped all 15 shots he faced in regulation and overtime before denying three Devils skaters in the shootout.

Patrik Berglund scored with 5:50 remaining in regulation to send the game to overtime, while Chris Stewart and David Perron also scored for St. Louis, which ended its three-game road trip with two straight victories.

"Whenever you're down one goal going into the third on the road it's a good position to be in, so we were pretty comfortable," said Elliot.

Elliott, who played in 12 games with Colorado last year after getting traded from Ottawa, is expected to get the start tonight. He is 1-1-1 in three career tests against the Avalanche.

St. Louis has a 22-3-4 record at home this year compared to a 10-11-3 mark on the road. Beginning with tonight's test, the Blues will play four of their next five games at Scottrade Center.

Jason Arnott is not expected to play tonight for the Blues after sitting out the last three games with a bruised left shoulder. Arnott was placed on injured reserve Friday and will also sit out Sunday's game against San Jose. Matt D'Agostini will also miss a second game since sustaining a blow to the head on Tuesday against Ottawa.

The Blues are expected to get forward Andy McDonald back Sunday when they faced the Sharks. McDonald, who had 50 points in 58 games for the Blues last year, has been out since suffering a concussion on Oct. 13 in Dallas.

Tonight's tilt marks the fourth and final scheduled meeting between the Blues and Avs this season. Colorado has taken two of three encounters so far, but the Blues posted a 4-0 triumph on home ice when the clubs last met on Jan. 7. The Avs have still won nine of 11 overall in this series, but St. Louis has claimed the last two matchups in the Gateway City.

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FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).

Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.

Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).

Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.

Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.

The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.

What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.

Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.

But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.

In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.