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(C1) COLORADO AVALANCHE VS. (C3) ST. LOUIS BLUES
On paper the Avalanche were a significantly better team than the Nashville Predators, especially with them missing goaltender Juuse Saros. It ended up being one series that went exactly as you might anticipate. The Predators put up a bit of a fight, pushing one game to overtime, but the Avalanche ultimately swept them. Now they’re rested and waiting to see if the St. Louis Blues will offer them a bigger challenge when they too were swept by Colorado in the 2021 playoffs.
This version of the Blues certainly have that potential. For one thing they have a hot goaltender going into this round. After falling behind 2-1 in their first round series against the Minnesota Wild, the Blues decided to turn to Jordan Binnington. He took the opportunity and ran with it, posting a 3-0 record, 1.67 GAA, and .943 save percentage in three starts. Sometimes the key to success in the playoffs can boil down to having a goaltender who gets hot at the right time. Is that the case for the Blues this year?
Well, Binnington is certainly up for a major challenge against the Colorado Avalanche. They have one of the best offenses in the league with Mikko Rantanen, Nathan MacKinnon, Gabriel Landeskog, Nazem Kadri, Andre Burakovsky, and Valeri Nichushkin providing them with at least two high-end scoring lines and they have two elite offensive defensemen in Cale Makar and Devon Toews to compliment them. Makar in particular was amazing in the first round, scoring three goals and 10 points in four games, but they also had MacKinnon step up with five goals in four contests while Landeskog and Rantanen had six and five points respectively.
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That said, it’s not as if the Minnesota Wild lacked high-end forwards. We typically think of the Wild as a defensive team, but this year they featured Kirill Kaprizov, Kevin Fiala, Mats Zuccarello, and Ryan Hartman, who all had 65 points or more. They had six forwards with 20-plus goals, including Kaprizov who had 47 goals. You can say that the Wild didn’t play up to their potential towards the end of the series, but Binnington still deserves credit for shutting down that group and it shows that he might be up to the task of handling the Avalanche with how he’s been playing lately.
If his hot streak fizzles out, the Blues will be in a far worse position, but it has to be noted that St. Louis is more than just a team with a hot goaltender. The Blues didn’t have the best offense in the league, but they arguably had the deepest. Colorado finished the season with an impressive seven 20-plus goal scorers, but the Blues had nine players who recorded at least 20 goals. They also had four players with at least 75 points in Vladimir Tarasenko, Robert Thomas, Pavel Buchnevich, and Jordan Kyrou.
Scoring depth continued to be a strength for the Blues in the first round. David Perron, Ryan O’Reilly, and Tarasenko all scored five goals in the first round. They also had 12 different players record at least three points over the six-game series.
So the Blues are a strong team even without Binnington suddenly playing like Martin Brodeur. After all, Binnington had a pretty rough regular season and the Blues were still 49-22-11. So clearly this is a team offering the Avalanche a significant challenge and winning the series, but there’s no question that Colorado is still the favorite.
The Avalanche have such a strong core of forwards and defensemen and while we’ve talked about the Blues’ offensive depth, Colorado is no slouch in that department either. Plus, as hot as Binnington has been, under normal circumstances the Avalanche would be given the clear edge in this series in terms of goaltending. Darcy Kuemper played an important role in Colorado’s regular season success with a 37-12-4 record, 2.54 GAA, and .921 save percentage in 57 starts and he was a wall during the Avalanche’s first round series against Nashville, posting a 1.63 GAA and .934 save percentage in three starts. If Binnington regresses to his norm, then Kuemper should easily look like the stronger goalie in this series, but even if Binnington stays hot, Kuemper is capable of matching up to him in a goaltending duel.
Ultimately, the biggest thing working against the Avalanche might not be the Blues, but recent history. The Avalanche have featured some great teams in recent years but haven’t been able to get past the second round since 2002. Will their recent playoff disappointments get into their head? St. Louis doesn’t have those kinds of demons anymore. While they did suffer first round exits in 2020 and 2021, they won the Cup in 2019. They know what it’s like to win and what it takes to win. Perhaps the mental game will end up being decisive, especially as we get later into this series, but I still can’t help but think the Avalanche will be able to squeak through.
Players To Watch
Jordan Binnington – As noted above, Binnington played a big role in the Blues’ first round victory. Binnington’s career overall has been pretty interesting. He was the key reason St. Louis even made the playoffs in 2019 – let alone won the Cup – with his 24-5-1 record, 1.89 GAA, and .927 save percentage in 32 contests. However, he was at best average in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 regular seasons and was easily solved in the 2020 and 2021 playoffs. He seemed to just drop further in 2021-22 and finished with an 18-14-4 record, 3.13 GAA, and .901 save percentage in 37 starts. That led to Ville Husso opening the playoffs as the Blues’ starting goaltender, but he lost that job after the Wild crushed St. Louis in Games 2 and 3. After so many twists and turns in Binnington’s career over such a short time, it will be interesting to see what the next chapter of his journey brings.
Ryan O’Reilly – Ryan O’Reilly got his start in Colorado, originally being taken by the Avalanche with the 33rd overall pick in the 2009 NHL Entry Draft. He played with them through 2015 before Colorado traded him to Buffalo. His tenure with the Sabres didn’t play out as he might have hoped, but he has no reason to be jealous of what the Avalanche have become. O’Reilly moved onto the St. Louis Blues where he became a key part of their success, and he even won the 2019 Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP to led the Blues to a championship. While the Blues fell short of the Cup in 2020 and 2021, O’Reilly still performed well in those two playoff runs and he was again a major contributor in the Blues’ victory over the Wild, scoring three goals and eight points in six games. He now has 17 goals and 45 points in 45 postseason contests as a member of the St. Louis Blues.
Cale Makar – Makar had an ideal 2021-22 campaign with 28 goals and 86 points in 77 games while averaging 25:40 minutes. If anything he found another level in the playoffs, adding three goals and 10 points in Colorado’s four-game sweep of Nashville. He now has 10 goals and 41 points in 39 career playoff games, which is a remarkable achievement given that he’s just 23-years-old. Countering Makar at both ends of the ice will be a key challenge for St. Louis.
Nathan MacKinnon – Of course, handling Makar is far from the only challenge facing St. Louis. MacKinnon is one of the best players in the league and he only seems to get better in the playoffs. He has 33 goals and 5 points in 54 career postseason games. That said, over MacKinnon’s tenure with the Avalanche, stopping him has gone hand-in-hand with their opponent winning. In playoff games where MacKinnon has been in the lineup but hasn’t recorded a point, Colorado has gone 2-13.
Additional Series Notes:
The Avalanche are entering this series with no significant injuries, and they haven’t played since May 9. Rust might be a concern in Game 1, but the Blues will be facing the Avalanche’s optimal roster.
St. Louis isn’t quite as lucky on the injury front. Marco Scandella has a lower-body issue that kept him out for the last two games of their first-round series. He did practice on Monday, but his status for Game 1 remains unclear. Torey Krug is also dealing with a lower-body injury, and he isn’t expected to be ready for the start of the series. He will join the Blues in Denver, but coach Craig Berube made it clear that will be for rehab purposes.
This is the second straight year that St. Louis and Colorado will face each other in the playoffs. The Avalanche swept the Blues in four games in their 2021 first round series. That said, the Blues have performed substantially better this season and it’s important not to dismiss them just because of how things went down a year ago.
The Avalanche converted on an unreal 43.8% of their power plays in the first round (7-of-16). They finished seventh in the regular season with a 24.0% success rate. That said, the Blues were even better in the regular season with a 27.0% conversion rate on the power play. In the Blues’ first round series, they scored on 8-of-26 power-play opportunities (30.8%). Clearly these are two powerhouses with the man advantage.
When it comes to killing penalties, things are a little different. St. Louis ranked fifth in the regular season by killing 84.1%, but Colorado was an average team with a 79.7% success rate on the PK. So far in the playoffs, St. Louis has killed 83.3% of their penalties while Colorado is at 76.9%.
Colorado tended to come out strong in its first round series, scoring nine goals in the first period and then five and six goals in the final two frames. St. Louis were the opposite, scoring five first period goals followed by eight and nine markers in the subsequent two periods. It might be best not to read too much into that though because that’s not in line with how things were in the regular season. Colorado’s best period in the regular season with the third, where they scored 115 compared to 88 first period goals. St. Louis tended to be more of a second period team, scoring 124 goals in that frame versus 77 in the first period.
(P1) CALGARY FLAMES VS. (C2) EDMONTON OILERS
