The St. Louis Blues head into Detroit tonight with an 8-0-1 record in January and defenseman Alex Pietrangelo has been a major reason. Two more assists Saturday in a 4-2 victory over Buffalo pushed his career-high point streak to nine games, the longest by an NHL defenseman this season. It's the second-longest by a Blues defenseman in franchise history. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Jeff Brown had scoring streaks of nine and 10 games in 1992-93. "He's just emerging right in front of everybody's eyes as hopefully a No. 1 defenseman," Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said. "Those are hard to find." Is Pietrangelo a little ahead of schedule at age 22? "Not so much defensively ... I'm a little surprised offensively," Hitchcock said. "I had him in the (World Championships) six months ago and I didn't see the offensive player that he is now. That's just growing. He's got more maturity in his game, he's not as jumpy offensively and I'm impressed with that."