St. Louis Blues (+130) vs Minnesota Wild (-150)
PICK: Over in initial games. Play it safe and take the home team ML. However, I don’t mind taking St. Louis as a Dog in Game 5.
If we’re gonna match up teams, Minnesota and St. Louis are two of the most identical teams amongst the match ups. The two match up lines, we have grinders mixed with goal scorers. Goalies are equally tough if we’re talking about Talbot and Husso. But if we’re talking about Fluery and Binnington then we opening up a lot of questions. Minnesota quietly can play either game, offensive goal scoring or shutdown defense and St. Louis has shown that they too can play defense or offense depending on the tilt of the game.
Both teams have had strong stands at home and can win on the road. Both teams love to score as seen by dominating the over in each situation. And although St. Louis has won all three meetings dominating in all of the major statistical areas, Minnesota still has a change to win the series as the odds on favorite.
I have to be honest, this is Minnesota’s strongest team of the past four years and they are changing the narrative. You have Kaprizov, Fiala, Eriksson Ek, and Zuccarello leading the way offensively with Boldy as a solid surprise addition to the lineup. But the biggest surprise is Ryan Hartman who tends to be a brawler, he has 34 tallies this year and is second on the team for goals. To think he was in a Flyers uniform less than a year ago! Minnesota has great two-way players with Kulikov (+23), Foligno (+25) and big body Greenway (+26) who loves to get in the heads of opposing star players. And the defensive depth of Spurgeon (+32) and Goligoski (+41) only lends itself to keeping it close.
St. Louis tends to be quietly playing a Craig Berube style of hockey season. You may not know you’re in a brawl until you’re in that brawl. And you gotta love that when you look up Berube’s coach’s picture you get him still in his Washington Capitals jersey. St. Louis tends to be a little more erratic and unpredictable. Consistently inconsistent! Schenn, Thomas and Tarasenko led the way with strong season but never night in and night out. Kyrou (who was red hot in the first half of the season), Saad (who was red hot the second half of the season), Barbashev, Perron and Buchnevich all were scoring threats but never all at the same time, so it will really be up to whether St. Louis can play a complete, consistent 60 minutes. Either way, a solid team will come out of this series and whoever wins will play the disruptor.
Regular Season Series: St. Louis 3-0
Jan 1st: STL 6 (Binnington) @ MINN 4 (Talbot(6)/Kahkonen)
Apr 8th: MINN 3 (Talbot) @ STL 4 (Husso) (OT)
Apr 16th: MINN 5 (Talbot) @ STL 6 (Husso)
Minnesota Numbers
Home Wins 76% (31-10); Away Wins 54% (22-19)
Home Favorite 76% (25-8); Away Favorite 68% (17-8)
Home 65% Over (26O/14U); Away 53% Over (21O/19U)
Home v Central 62% (8-5); Away v Central 38% (5-8)
Home Favorite +$661; Away Favorite +$407
Home PL 59% (24-17); Away PL 41% (17-24)
St. Louis Numbers
Home Wins 63% (26-15); Away Wins 56% (23-18)
Home Dog 29% (2-5); Away Dog 55% (11-9)
Home 54% Over (21O/18U); Away 58% Over (22O/16U)
Home v Central 62% (8-5); Away v Central 69% (9-4)
Home Dog -$280; Away Dog +$483
Home PL 59% (24-17); Away PL 61% (25-16)
