Maurice not deceived by Blues' record

The St. Louis Blues have lost their last two games and nine of the last 11, and are last in the Central Division.

But the Blues' last win: a 3-2 shootout victory Saturday over the San Jose Sharks. That has the attention of Canes coach Paul Maurice heading into tonight's game at the RBC Center.

"I'm not so sure St. Louis isn't playing better now than they were at the start with all their healthy bodies," Maurice said today. "Sometimes, you get those guys and they just work and work and work and grind and grind, and all play together. They can be dangerous.

"But we're not far enough up the food chain to look past anybody. Every game is important for us and we're going to have to play very, very well to beat these guys tonight."

The Canes' last seven games have been: win, loss, win, loss, win, loss, win. If that continues ...

"As long as we're winning more than we're losing, I think that's a start," Maurice said. "I'm looking at it more, if you look at the last three regulation losses, two were against Boston ... and at (Minnesota) we had 37 shots.

"I think we're played a fairly consistent game. Other than the Atlanta game in Atlanta (a 5-4 win last Friday), we've been pretty good. We'd like to see more wins stack up and we're going to need to, but we've been pretty consistent with the exception of one game."

Maurice said defenseman Niclas Wallin, out 11 games with an ankle injury, could play Saturday at Tampa Bay. He said the plan was for goaltender Cam Ward to start both games of the back-to-back if all goes well tonight.