The St. Louis Blues and the Colorado Avalanche meet in game two of their NHL playoff second-round series from the Ball Arena on Wednesday night.
The St. Louis Blues come into this one looking to bounce back after a crushing 3-2 OT loss to the Avs to kick off the series last time out. David Perron leads the Blues with 9 points while Ryan O’Reilly also has 9 points with Perron logging 5 goals and 4 assists and O’Reilly chipping in a team-high 6 goals. Vladimir Tarasenko has 6 points with 5 goals of his own while Jordan Kyrou, and Justin Faulk each have 5 points with Kyrou logging 4 goals while Faulk has 5 assists. Jordan Binnington’s taken over goaltending duties for the Blues, going 3-1 with a .944 save percentage and a 1.94 GAA since the Blues switched their starting goaltending duties from Ville Husso.
The Colorado Avalanche will try to build off of their series-opening win and attempt to take a 2-0 series lead into St. Louis with another solid performance here. Cale Makar has a team-high 10 points with 3 goals and a team-high 7 assists while Gabriel Landeskog has 8 points and Nathan MacKinnon has 7 points with MacKinnon logging a team-high 5 goals and Landeskog split between 3 goals and 5 assists. Mikko Rantanen has 6 assists and Devon Toews also has 5 points with 3 goals and a pair of assists. Darcy Kuemper is 3-0 so far in the postseason, posting a .930 save percentage and a 1.67 GAA while Pavel Francouz is also 2-0 with a .902 save percentage and a 2.97 GAA so far in the postseason..
St. Louis is 9-3 in their last 12 road games and 16-6 in their last 22 games overall while the over is 12-2-2 in their last 16 games as a road underdog. Colorado is 55-11 in their last 66 home games and 49-17 in their last 66 games overall while the over is 5-2 in their last 7 games overall.
I get why you could look at the Avs being that they’ve been so dominant at home, but this is going to be a bit of an adjustment game for the Blues, who really didn’t have to adjust much from game one as they were in it until the end. The issue was simply being that it’s hard to win in OT when you don’t have a shot on goal in the extra frame compared to Colorado’s 13. I think this is going to be a battle and I think the Blues manage to steal home ice here with a win at solid plus money.