The St. Louis Blues looked like a team that had just come off a grueling 7 game series in their Saturday 6-3 opening game rout by the San Jose Sharks. In actuality, both teams had come into the Western Conference Final after a seven game set in the previous round but the Blues’ may have taken a bit more out of them. At one point, St. Louis was down 3-1 to the Dallas Stars before they took the final two games of the series to advance. Game 7 was a double overtime thriller that ended when Patrick Maroon scored his third goal of the playoffs nearly six minutes in to the second extra session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blues’ goaltender Jordan Binnington is a rookie in his first Stanley Cup playoffs run. Binnington took over for Jake Allen just after the halfway point of the season and his strong performance and workhorse mentality gave St. Louis the fixture in the starting netminder spot that they had been seeking for several years. Sharks’ goalie Martin Jones is a veteran who was also the backup to Jonathan Quick in Los Angeles before he came to San Jose. He’s been here before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There’s every reason to think that St. Louis can make this series competitive. San Jose has had problems playing with the lead during this postseason. They’ve won the first game in the previous two series by a combined margin of 10-4 but lost the second. In both rounds they ended up having to go the full seven games. Their previous round against Colorado was more of a ‘see saw’ affair with the teams alternating wins and losses in the first six games but their opening series against Vegas saw them down 3-1 at one point. In other words, San Jose hasn’t had an easy time of it either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Binnington didn’t get much help in Game 1–the Blues’ skaters appeared tentative and listless, making far too many mistakes against a very dangerous team. St. Louis turned the puck over 11 times and four of the Sharks’ six goals were the result of mistakes made by the Blues’ defensemen. St. Louis’ backliners have been very good throughout the postseason and they should rebound in Game 2. Not that the forwards did their part either and had trouble getting the puck out of their own zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In what should be a very even series we’ll do the same thing we did for Game 1–take the underdog NHL betting odds price with St. Louis and look for the game to stay ‘Under’ the total. 6 of the 7 head to head during the past three seasons have gone ‘Under’ and the Blues should be able to fix many of the mistakes that doomed them to defeat in Game 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n