The St. Louis Blues are hoping to change their playoff script this time around.
The Blues have been one of the most successful regular-season teams in recent years, finishing with 109 points or more in the last three full seasons. However, the playoffs have been nothing but heartbreak. They have lost twice in the first round and once in the conference semifinal round.
Head coach Ken Hitchcock's team comes into the playoffs having won five of its last six games. The Minnesota Wild bounced back from a miserable start and were among the best teams in the league in the second half of the year (28-9-3 in their last 40 games).
Much of that is due to the outstanding play of goaltender Devan Dubnyk, who came aboard Jan. 15 and was spectacular for the Wild. If he can continue his stellar play in goal, the Wild could go a long way in the postseason.
Still, beating the Blues will not be easy. St. Louis, the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference, won 53.4 percent of its faceoffs, and that's the best of all playoff teams. When players like Vladimir Tarasenko, Jaden Schwartz and T.J. Oshie have possession of the puck, the Blues often dominate for long stretches.
The Wild killed off 86.3 percent of opposing power plays and ranked first in the league in that category.
Those two aspects will be worth watching in this series, but several others deserve a look too. This slideshow will look at every aspect of this series and offer the complete TV schedule.
from Bleacher Report http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Bleacherreport/~3/uhgzI7ujXdg/2428415-blues-vs-wild-preview-and-prediction-for-the-2015-nhl-playoffs-matchup
via IFTTT April 12, 2015 at 01:04PM
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Click to see the code!
To insert emoticon you must added at least one space before the code.