On Thursday night, the St. Louis Blues and Minnesota Wild will begin a best-of-seven series to decide who will advance in the 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Blues finished the regular season as Central Division Champions, and the Wild claimed the first wild card spot in the Western Conference. The Blues and Wild finished with season with almost identical statistics with both teams averaging about 2.8 goals a game and allowing about 2.4 goals a game as well. During the regular season, the Blues and Wild met four times with the teams splitting the series.
One big question going into the postseason for the Blues is who will start in net. During the regular season series with the Wild, Brian Elliott played goalie for three of the games, and he was 1-2. Jake Allen won the other game with a final score of 3-2 in a shootout.
Goaltender Brian Elliott finished with the regular season with a record of 27-14-3 with a goals against average (GAA) of 2.26. Other the hand, Jake Allen finished with a record of 22-7-4 with a GAA of 2.28. The numbers are a little skewed because Elliott started 46 games whereas Allen only started 37. It will be interesting who Hitchcock goes with the hot hand in Allen or stick with his original starter in Elliott.
Another question that needs to be answered is can the Blues offense score enough goals to send them into the next round. One of the main reasons that the Blues have not advanced far in the playoffs is because the lack of offense in terms of goal scoring in the playoffs. In last year’s playoffs, the Blues were outscored by the Blackhawks, 20-14. The Blues certainly addressed this issue in the offseason by acquiring playoff goal-scorer Paul Statsny. Last season when he was the Colorado in the playoffs where he scored 7 goals in 10 games. He also contributed 5 assists. One player to keep an eye on is Dmitrij Jaskin. Since being called up from Chicago, Jaskin has elevated his game finishing the regular season with 13 goals in only 54 games. Jaskin is a big body forward that will go to the front of the net and the dirty parts of the ice to jam home loose pucks for goals. The Blues will also get back healthy forwards and the top two team leading goal scorers in Vladimir Tarasenko and Alexander Steen.
A third question to be asked is can the Blues hold a series lead. In the last two previous playoffs, the Blues jumped out to a 2-0 lead against their series opponent only to have them lose the next 4 leading to an early 1st round playoff exit. The Blues are older and more mature team. So, if they can get an early 2-0 lead, they should be able to maintain it and win the series. If not, the Blues will be able to handle a skid before getting the team back on track. The Blues have veteran leadership in captain David Backes, whose leadership needs to be shown during this series.
The Minnesota Wild brings a younger but still talented team to these playoffs. The Wild are led by veteran forward Zach Parise who scored 33 goals and finished with 62 points. Veteran Ryan Suter leads the Wild on defense. The Wild also finished the season ranked 1st in penalty killing with 86.3%. The Wild’s late surge to get into the playoffs can be attributed to the phenomenal play of goalie Devan Dubnyk. Back in January, the Wild traded for Dubnyk from the Arizona Coyotes. At the time, the Wild were addressing their goaltending woes and extremely pleased when Dubnyk finished the season with a record of 36-14-4 with a GAA of 2.07. Dubnyk played 58 games this season with the Wild. The one thing going for the Blues and against the Wild is that Dubnyk has played in the last 39 games for the Wild. That is a lot of games for a goalie to play in without really getting a break expect for off days. On Saturday, the Blues saw that were able to score early and often even forcing head coach, Mike Yeo, to pull him off the ice. Dubnyk could be a little tired or exhausted from having to play so many games consecutively, which may allow Dubnyk not to play at his peak performance. Dubnyk has also never played in the postseason, so it will be interesting to see if he will have nerves that will impact his performance.
When it comes down to it, the Blues have a slight edge with having home ice advantage and also an older and more mature team than last year’s playoffs team. The Blues have a lot of favorable match ups including their physical and bigger defenseman on the smaller forwards from the Wild. The Wild also had to work extra hard to even get into the playoffs, and that can wear down a team. It makes you wonder if they still have something left in the tank. This series will be somewhat close, and the Wild could give the Blues a scare, but the Blues will prevail and exercise some of their first round playoff demons. My prediction is that the series will go to six games with the Blues winning the series 4-2.
Game one is on Thursday night at 8:30 on Fox Sports Midwest, local St. Louis area, and NBCSN for the out of town viewing areas.
(Photo Credit: NHL.com)
