St. Louis Blues Try To Even Stanley Cup Finals

The Boston Bruins have looked downright dominant during the Stanley Cup Playoffs. After a 7 game battle against the pesky Toronto Maple Leafs and a rocky start to the series against Columbus where they went down 1-2 early they’ve done little wrong. Even with the brief misstep against the Blue Jackets they’ve won 11 of their last 13 and 8 straight which is extremely impressive during the playoffs. Goaltender Tuuka Rask is the Playoff MVP to this point and the efficiency with which they eliminated the surging Carolina Hurricanes was almost frightening.

It hasn’t been quite as easy for the St. Louis Blues. They needed six games to eliminate Winnipeg, 7 games to dispatch Dallas and six games to beat the San Jose Sharks in the Western Conference Finals. They’ve won 6 of 8 but they’ve also shown stretches of inconsistent play which is something they can’t afford against the Bruins. Their focus is now on Boston and despite their Game 1 loss the series isn’t quite as lopsided as the sports media appears to think.

The Blues played the Bruins fairly even with the exception of a dismal second period. After they opened up a 2-0 lead 1:00 minute in on Vladimir Tarasenko’s 9th goal of the playoffs it was all Bruins for the next 19 minutes. Boston scored two goals to tie the score at intermission and more problematically outshot St. Louis by a lopsided 18-3 margin. That onslaught produced the equally pronounced disparity in the shots on goal for the game (38-20 Boston). St. Louis would continue to play on their heels in the third though the shot margin was a more reasonable 12-9 edge for the home team.

St. Louis has been the most penalized team throughout the playoffs and that trend continued in Game 1 as the Blues took 10 minutes in penalties to 4 for the Bruins. That came back to haunt them in the disastrous second period as Charlie McAvoy would tie the game with his unassisted power play goal. It’s important to keep in mind, however, that for all intents and purposes it was a one goal Boston victory as the final margin came with Brad Marchand’s empty net goal late in the contest. Overall, it was a clear case of the Bruins doing all of the ‘little things’ right and the Blues not.

The good news for St. Louis is that they appear to realize what needs to be fixed with a common theme since the first game being the need to play more disciplined hockey. They also need to be a bit more physical–that’s clearly an area in which Boston is more comfortable but if St. Louis lets themselves get pushed around they have little hope of coming back. A positive note from Game 1 is the Blues’ 33-32 edge in hits but Boston had more big hits and more timely hits.

One of the most important concepts for a beginning sports handicapper to learn is this: No team is ever as good as they look at their best and no team is ever as bad as they look at their worst. With the media narrative now being the ‘dominance’ of the Bruins over the Blues that looks to be at play in this series. St. Louis looked horrible in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals and came back strong. Getting a good price on the NHL betting odds board, we’ll look for that to happen again.

BET ST. LOUIS BLUES +150 OVER BOSTON BRUINS

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