Hockey fans in St. Louis are cheering the Blues. Their hockey team has won 13 of its first 21 games. The Blues didn’t claim their 13th win until Jan. 4 last season, in their 40th game. In 2005-06, win No. 13 didn’t come until Feb. 2, in the Blues’ 52nd game.

Not much has changed offensively. The Blues go into Wednesday night’s game with Buffalo ranked last in the league in shots per game, and 23 NHL clubs are averaging more goals per game this season.

“But the goaltending has been tremendous and certainly our penalty killing has been outstanding,” Blues coach Andy Murray told Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch earlier this week. The numbers prove it.

St. Louis Blues, Since 2005-06 (with NHL rank)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2005-06. . . . . . . . . 2006-07. . . . . . . . .2007-08
Goals/Game. . . . . . . . . . . . 2.35 (30). . . . . . . . . 2.54 (26). . . . . . . . .2.48 (24)
Goals Against/Game. . . . . . .3.46 (28). . . . . . . . . 3.02 (19t). . . . . . . . 2.19 (3)
Shots/Game. . . . . . . . . . . .28.5 (24). . . . . . . . . .26.9 (28). . . . . . . . 24.7 (30)
Shots Against/Game. . . . . . 30.6 (23). . . . . . . . . .28.9 (12). . . . . . . . 27.4 (9)
Save Percentage. . . . . . . . .887 (26) . . . . . . . . . .895 (24). . . . . . . . .920 (4)
Power Play Pct. . . . . . . . . 14.6 (27). . . . . . . . . .12.1 (29). . . . . . . . .14.6 (23)
Penalty Kill Pct. . . . . . . . . 82.2 (15). . . . . . . . . .80.0 (25). . . . . . . . .91.0 (1)

Goalie Manny Legace has been terrific in goal, posting a 2.13 goals-against average and .922 save percentage en route to a 10-6 record. He ranks in the top 10 in GAA and save percentage, and he’s come up big in nearly every close game of late.

The Blues won four straight one-goal games in the middle of the month, beating Detroit, Columbus and Nashville twice despite being outshot in all four contests. St. Louis was outshot 122-81 in those four victories, with Legace starring in three of them and backup Hannu Toivonen playing superbly in the fourth -- a shootout victory on Nov. 17 in Nashville, where the Predators enjoyed a shot advantage of 37-20.

It’s been more than just the goaltenders leading the way, however, as the Blues have been playing a solid defensive game in front of Legace and Toivonen on most nights. It’s been a necessity as the Blues have struggled to pick up their scoring.

“We would like to be higher than we are on shots. . . we would like to be higher than we are on offense,” Murray pointed out to Rutherford. “But we don’t want to compensate anything defensively to try to do that. We want to be good defensively and add to the offense, not take anything away from the defense.”

So far, so good.