Let's Go Blues

The St. Louis Blues and Vancouver Canucks will fight for the upper hand of their first-round Western Conference playoff series when they play Game 5 on Wednesday night in Edmonton.

The Canucks won the first two games of the series 5-2 and 4-3 in overtime, then the Blues won the next two 3-2 in overtime and 3-1 to even it up.

"We played a hard back-to-back against the Stanley Cup champs," Canucks winger J.T. Miller said after Monday night's game. "It's a best-of-seven series for a reason, and we knew it was a tall task. We were one shot away from going up 3-0 (Sunday) and tonight it was 1-1 five-on-five. It's not like we're getting our butts whipped up and down the rink.

"They're a good team, we're a good team. It's going to be a hard, long series. We signed up for that. The mindset is have a good day off (Tuesday) and come back ready to go because it's going to be another battle."

After scoring five power-play goals in the first two games, the Canucks went 0-for-7 with the man advantage Monday.

"We've been making adjustments as we go just based on what they do," Blues defenseman Alex Pietrangelo said. "Last game, they scored the one on the rush, but I thought we did a better job. More of the same. Big thing for us is clearing the puck when we have an opportunity. We were much better with that (in Game 4)."

The Blues scored twice on their power play Monday, matching their total for the first three games of the series. They also settled into their puck-possession game at even strength and outshot the Canucks 37-23 overall.

After being held off the scoresheet in Game 1 of the series, Blues center Ryan O'Reilly has three goals and three assists in the past three games. He scored twice and added an assist in Game 4.

"He's spending no time in his own end and a lot in ours," Miller said. "I think we can challenge ourselves to be better and win more pucks in their end of the rink so they're wasting their shifts defending instead of the other way around."

Canucks center Bo Horvat has been shut out in the past two games after scoring four goals in Games 1 and 2. Defenseman Quinn Hughes had his six-game point streak (one goal, eight assists) stopped Monday.

The Blues started backup goaltender Jake Allen in back-to-back games, and he stopped 61 of 64 shots. Coach Craig Berube has no reason to turn back to 2019 postseason hero Jordan Binnington, who is 0-4 in this postseason with a 4.27 goals-against average and a .862 save percentage.

The Canucks have received steady work from goaltender Jacob Markstrom, who is 5-3 with a 2.42 GAA and a .927 save percentage.

The Blues will play without winger Vladimir Tarasenko, who missed the past two games and then left the bubble to have his surgically repaired shoulder examined in St. Louis. He will miss the rest of the series.

"I'm not going to jump to conclusions on anything," Berube said. "He's not feeling right, so that's why he's going to get it looked at. It is concerning, but we've got to wait and see."

theohall wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 19, 2020 9:45 am

Penalties called in the series:

Game 1 7 against St Louis 4 against Vancouver - edge to Canucks
Game 2 8 against Vancouver 5 against St Louis - edge to St Louis, but the Blues PP sucked.
Game 3 3-3
Game 4 9 against the Blues 7 against Vancouver, but 2 were automatic delay of game calls against the Blues, so technically, it was 7-7 based on officials judgement calls. The difference was the Blues repeatedly getting good clears on those 7 PKs along with a few quality saves when Vancouver did manage to get PP shots through.

In Game 3, the Blues had an OT PP which is rare in playoff hockey. It's more even than it seems overall, because of the Blues putting pucks over glass twice in the last game.

gaijin wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 19, 2020 9:00 am

I fear that with the day off between games, Vancouver will have had time to take a look at the Blues' play in the last 2 games and adjust their game in response. I guess we'll see. I'm expecting renewed effort from the Canucks. I don't really expect much change from the Blues as far as the roster goes. Things are clicking right now. May as well ride Allen while the wins are coming.

And stay out of the box. I know the Blues' PK was perfect in the last game, but I don't want to give Vancouver the chance to get their PP going again like they had in Games 1-2. Although this seems to be more a problem with the officiating rather than with the Blues' discipline.

Correct my bias- it looks to me like the Blues are getting a lot of penalties that wouldn't normally be called. Vancouver has taken some too, but to me it seems like the Blues are getting the worse of it. Is this just me being biased? Or has anyone else noticed?

Robb_K wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 19, 2020 2:28 pm

Will Barbashev play? He's back from quarantine. If so, would he replace De La Rose, or MacEachern? What's the story with Tarasenko?

WaukeeBlues wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 19, 2020 2:14 pm

According to Canucks fans it was the refs who won the game for the Blues in game 3. Not because of calls, but because of non-calls they felt should've been penalties. Twitter was ALIGHT with that kind of crap.

theohall wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 19, 2020 4:45 pm

WaukeeBlues wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 19, 2020 2:14 pm

According to Canucks fans it was the refs who won the game for the Blues in game 3. Not because of calls, but because of non-calls they felt should've been penalties. Twitter was ALIGHT with that kind of crap.

Then Vancouver fans need to learn how playoff hockey is normally called, because were the Canucks to advance and wind up with Wes McCauley calling a game, there won't be 10+ penalty calls combined for both teams. It would be more in line with the way Game 3 was called. This 10+ penalties per game is nuts compared to normal playoff officiating.