Avalanche Hope to Pile on Thursday Night and Go Up 2-0 Versus Blues
St. Louis visits Colorado for Game 2 of the Round Two best-of-seven showdown as a heavy underdog – why we believe the Avs should move to 2-0 against the Blues
After finishing the NHL regular season with the best record and most points, the heavily-favoured Colorado Avalanche fought off a real scare in the opening game of their Round Two playoff series against the St. Louis Blues.
Colorado now leads 1-0 in the best-of-seven, following an exciting 3-2 overtime victory. The Avs won the game, but the Blues earned everyone's respect, including that of their opponents.
St. Louis Blues Preview:
The Blues will look to bounce back in Game 2 after a close loss. That said, the final score was a bit misleading. The only one reason St. Louis did not lose Game 1 by multiple goals was due to the outstanding play of starting their goaltender. Jordan Binnington stopped 51 of 54 shots (0.944 save percentage). Indeed, Binnington has been incredible throughout playoffs. Since taking over before Game 4 of St. Louis’ first-round series against Minnesota, Binnington has produced a 0.944 save percentage. Let's also remember that he led the Blues to the Stanley Cup trophy in 2019.
On the other hand, St. Louis’ offense struggled to generate anything against Colorado. Despite the game going into overtime, the Blues recorded only 25 shots on goal throughout the entire game, including zero shots in the added frame. In fact, their only two goals were created off a turnover and off a bad line change by Colorado.
Colorado Avalanche Preview:
The Avalanche look to extend their series lead to 2-0 before traveling to St. Louis for Game 3. While the offensive firepower of Colorado always seems to get the attention, it is really the defence that sets the Avalanche apart from the rest of the league.
Led by the superstar duo of Cale Makar and Devon Toews, Colorado is a difficult team to enter the zone on and create high-danger scoring chances.
Thus far in the postseason, starting goaltender Darcy Kuemper boasts a 0.930 save percentage and a 1.67 goals allowed average. Those are championship-level stats. While it is no secret Colorado has an outstanding offense to pair with its amazing blue line, we have faith in Kuemper to keep the Blues in check once again in Game 2.
Betting markets agree Colorado deserves to be heavily favoured. Spreads.ca shows the Avs to be 1.43 faves, coming back at 2.90 on the Blues. The total at 6.5 seems a bit high after what we witnessed from these two teams in Game 1.
The puck drops in Denver at 7:30 pm MST/ 9:30 EST.
Prediction (powered by Pointspreads.ca):
While there is no way we can bet against Colorado right now, there is also a strong argument to be made in not being able to bet against Binnington in goal for the Blues. He's a potential game changer as we saw in the opening match.
With those two things in mind, and with how Game 1 played out, we like Game 2 to go UNDER the total. This bet certainly hinges on Binnington being able to shut down Colorado once again, but history has proven he is very much capable of doing so.
The Blues’ offense, one of the deepest in the league, was completely lost in Game 1 and had an enormous amount of difficulty entering the zone. Even with the adjustments certain to be made, we do not expect much positive from the St. Louis offense.
This also might sound contrary to an UNDER wager, but if you must pick a side, we like Colorado on the puckline. It's hard to lay such heavy chalk in any playoff game. So instead, let's aim for a 2-goal victory.
Prediction: Colorado 3 / St. Louis 1
