Colorado Avalanche vs. St. Louis Blues: Stanley Cup playoff series preview and pick
Colorado Avalanche: 1st Central Division, swept Nashville 4-0 in first round.
St. Louis Blues: 3rd Central Division, defeated Minnesota 4-2 in first round.
Schedule (ET)
Tuesday, May 17, 9:30 p.m.: St. Louis at Colorado (TNT, Sportsnet, CBC, TVA Sports)
Thursday, May 19, 9:30 p.m.: St. Louis at Colorado (TNT, Sportsnet, CBC, TVA Sports)
Saturday, May 21, 8 p.m.: Colorado at St. Louis (TNT, Sportsnet, CBC, TVA Sports)
Monday, May 23, 9:30 p.m.: Colorado at St. Louis (TNT, Sportsnet, CBC, TVA Sports)
*Wednesday, May 25, TBD: St. Louis at Colorado (TBD)
*Friday, May 27, TBD: Colorado at St. Louis (TBD)
*Sunday, May 29, TBD: St. Louis at Colorado (TBD)
The Skinny
Yes, this is a rematch of last year’s first-round blowout of the Blues by the talented Avs, but no sense in drawing a line between A and B on that front. The Blues are back and, after two listless playoff performances following their first-ever Stanley Cup win in 2019, seem to have rediscovered their mojo in a big way. Heck, even Jordan Binnington, the team’s 2019 hero, is back in form, having won three straight starts against Minnesota to help the Blues advance. The Avs, as was the case last year, encountered minimal resistance in their four-game set with injury-depleted Nashville. Not sure that’s such a good thing, although the Avs once again are as deep and talented a team front to back as there is in the NHL. The Blues have injury issues on the back end but are built to give favored Colorado all they can handle in what should be a rollicking, fiercely contested series.
Head To Head
Colorado: 2-1-0
St. Louis: 1-2-0
The Avs won two of three games in what were high-scoring affairs but, well, who can remember any of that at this point in the season?
Top Five Scorers (Through Round 1)
Colorado
Cale Makar: 10 points
Nathan MacKinnon: 6 points
Gabriel Landeskog: 6 points
Devon Toews: 5 points
Mikko Rantanen: points
St. Louis
David Perron: 9 points
Ryan O’Reilly: 8 points
Vladimir Tarasenko: 6 points
Jodran Kyrou: 4 points
Colton Parayko: 4 points
X-Factor
The Blues learned the path to glory in going from last overall in the NHL standings in early 2019 to the franchise’s first championship, winning it on the road in Game 7 in Boston. And then they seemed to forget all that stuff. Now it appears as though that memory has been rediscovered. The Avs are still trying to figure it out, and this series will be a litmus test when it comes to their learning curve dating back to the second round last playoff year when they rolled out to a 2-0 series lead against Vegas and then collapsed, losing four straight. The Blues will hope to employ a deep forward contingent and punish highly skilled Avs defenders like the amazing Cale Makar – did you notice his 10 points in four games? Wow. One of the keys will be the Avs’ ability to ramp things up quickly in this series. They cake-walked through Nashville and have had oodles of time between games. That’s not necessarily a good thing for staying sharp against a team that is cooking like the Blues, who outscored normally stingy Minnesota 15-5 in winning three straight to move on from the first round.
Offense
Again, let’s try to put the Avs’ impressive offensive output in perspective as they were playing a Nashville team without star netminder Juuse Saros. So, yes, the Avs are a handful offensively, averaging more than five goals per game in the playoffs, and their power play is off the charts now, hitting on a league-best 43.8 percent of its opportunities. And did we mention that Makar, a finalist for a Norris Trophy as the league’s best defenseman, seems to have found an even more impressive gear early in this playoff season? With the NHL’s elite of the elite, it’s not about stopping Makar. It’s about limiting the damage he does to you. Nathan MacKinnon is averaging more than seven shots per game and there are few in the league who can shoot off the rush with such accuracy. Nine different Avs scored in their four-game sweep of the Preds and one of them isn’t Mikko Rantanen, who has five assists.
The Blues are getting lots of help from up and down the lineup, which is how they won the Cup in ’19. Vladimir Tarasenko has four goals in his last two games and the ageless David Perron has rediscovered his playoff scoring touch, leading the team with nine points, while linemate Ryan O’Reilly, the Blues’ ’19 playoff MVP, has four power-play goals. The Blues’ power play has been dangerous for the past two months.
Defense
A year ago, with Erik Johnson sidelined by injury and not yet having Josh Manson, added by the Avs from Anaheim at the trade deadline this year, The Avs turned out to be vulnerable on the back end as Vegas turned the tide in the second round by constantly pressuring the smaller Avalanche defenders and disrupting their potent transition game. This Avs team, at least in theory, is better prepared to play against a heavier team like the Blues, although the Blues are more speedy and less heavy than when they won the Cup in ’19. The Avalanche penalty kill was victimized by Nashville three times on 13 opportunities, but that’s a pretty small sample size. Of course the Blues have the weapons to make the Avs pay if they can’t stay out of the box, having scored eight times on 26 opportunities against the Wild.
Pretty remarkable job by the Blues to withstand multiple injuries to their blueline corps and not miss a beat against a fast, skilled Minnesota team. The Blues are still without top-four defenseman Torey Krug but did get veterans Nick Leddy, who scored in Game 6, and Robert Bortuzzo back. To adjust for Krug’s absence, head coach Craig Berube employed seven defensemen late in the first round, using Scott Perunovich basically as a power-play specialist. The talented rookie, who has overcome all kinds of injuries this season, leads the team with an average of just over four minutes a night with the man advantage. Colton Parayko had a solid series against Minnesota after seeing lots of ups and downs in his game during the regular season. There were some pretty wild swings in the Blues’ defensive games at times during the latter part of the regular season, but after falling behind 2-1 against the Wild, St. Louis limited them to two power-play goals on 13 chances over the last three games, all won by the Blues. But let’s be honest: as good as the Wild looked heading into the playoffs in terms of their offensive depth – and they were cooking – the Avs are a different beast altogether.
Goaltending
The Avs got a scare when netminder Darcy Kuemper took an errant Ryan Johansen stick through his mask and had to leave Game 3 in favor of Pavel Francouz, who also started and won Game 4 while Kuemper tended to a swollen eye. But Kuemper, who has never appeared in the playoffs beyond the first round, will be back between the pipes for Game 1 against the Blues, where he can expect to face a much sterner test. The real goaltending story will be with the Blues, who turned to 2019 hero Binnington after they fell behind 2-1 to the Wild. Binnington, much as he did when he took over as the starter midway through the 2018-19 season, responded like a champion, winning three straight and stopping 83 of 88 shots, good for a .943 save percentage. We saw glimpses of the old Binnington down the stretch but it still wasn’t a surprise that Ville Husso got the start against the Wild. If Binnington does falter, there’s little doubt that Blues head coach Craig Berube wouldn’t hesitate to go back to Husso. But for us, this is where the series will be won or lost. If Binnington can outplay Kuemper, the Blues have a real shot at the upset.
Injuries
As noted, the biggest loss for the Blues has been the absence of Krug, who normally plays with Justin Faulk and adds all kinds of options on both sides of the puck as well as bringing lots of playoff experience to the table. Berube was non-committal about Krug’s timeframe for returning but opened the door to sometime in this round. More likely is that another veteran defender, Marco Scandella, will be available after playing twice in the first round. The Avs should be at full complement with Kuemper back in form.
Intangibles
Craig Berube hasn’t been afraid to mix up his forward combinations if he hasn’t liked what he’s seen on the ice, and by necessity he’s had to do a lot of juggling with his defensive corps thanks to the injuries there. Until Krug returns, and even then, look for the Blues to continue to use 11 forwards and seven defensemen even though it requires some extra juggling of the forward corps. Does it matter? Maybe not against an Avs team that has so many weapons at its disposal. But this Blues team has seen it all over the past three years and even within the last half of the season. Not much rattles them. We have also seen MacKinnon at times this season lose his cool. He’s an emotional player. So, too, is Nazem Kadri who a year ago was suspended for eight games for a brutal hit on the Blues’ Faulk in the first round. It’s been a relatively quiet start for Kadri, who suffered an injury during the last quarter of the regular season and has three points in four games. If the Blues get to Colorado early in the series and force them to chase things, is this Avs team ready for that kind of adversity?
CONSENSUS SERIES PREDICTION
The Blues will give Colorado a real test, but the Avs’ superior top-end talent and more predictable goaltending will make the difference. Avalanche in 6.
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