NHL's hottest team sets eyes on playoffs

~ St. Louis enters the second half of the season eight points out of the final playoff spot.

ST. LOUIS -- Andy Murray walked into the St. Louis Blues' interview room Thursday, surveyed the crowd of reporters with a smile, and said "Let's do this every day."

Coming out of the All-Star break, the Blues are finally deserving of attention. Under their new coach they're the hottest team in the NHL with 12 wins in their last 16 games. Once mired in last place overall, where they ended up last season, they're lurking eight points out of a playoff spot with plenty of time left.

Goalie Manny Legace said if anyone had suggested such a turn of events in early December, he'd have "laughed right in your face."

"It's been unbelievable," Legace said. "It's been a great run and we've just got to keep it going."

The Blues roared into the break by taking seven of a possible eight points on a West Coast swing, including victories over Anaheim and San Jose -- the 1-2 teams in the Pacific Division. They're tied for 11th in the Western Conference with 46 points, eight points behind the eighth-place Minnesota Wild.

Players say Murray deserves all the credit he's received for the turnaround, boosting the team psyche as well as improving its systems.

"When you have confidence, everybody knows you've got to run with it," center Ryan Johnson said. "We're winning games a lot of times before we even step on the ice because we're so well-prepared."

Earlier in the season, the Blues lost a franchise-record 11 straight games. That sputtering start cost Murray's predecessor, Mike Kitchen, his job.

"We were underachievers," forward Doug Weight said. "There was a million things wrong with this team.

"I don't think this is going to stop, but hopefully we didn't waste too much time playing poorly."

The Blues, 12-2-2 in their last 16, will be tested right from the start. They return from the break today against the Red Wings, who are fourth in the Western Conference standings, and on Saturday they'll play the Predators, who are first overall in the NHL with 71 points.

They've got three games left against both of those teams and four to go against the Wild, the first coming on Tuesday.

The Blues figure they'll have to top 90 points to have a shot at the playoffs, meaning they'll have to amass at least 44 points in the final 34 games. Last year's eighth-place team in the Western Conference, Edmonton, had 95.

"I don't have to bring up the standings or where we sit in the league because all of you people do that for us," Murray told reporters. "My job is to make sure we're ready to go.

"Really, if you take a look at the overall picture and how many games you have to win and so on, it can be a little bit mindboggling, so right now we're just trying to focus on winning the next game."

The more they win, the more the franchise can postpone worrying about what to do about a number of potential free agents, including All-Star forward Bill Guerin and Keith Tkachuk.

Previous ownership alienated its fan base by gutting the roster to facilitate a sale, dealing off star defenseman Chris Pronger and others, and the new owners appear to be on the fence heading into the Feb. 27 trade deadline. The Blues are expecting crowds close to capacity for their first three games after the break, a reflection of the surge.

"The fans are identifying with the effort this team's putting in and they'd like to see these players, and as long as they play well I would expect that to happen," Murray said. "Ask me in about three weeks if we roll some wins together and where we're sitting and what our situation will be.

"There's lots of time to make decisions."