“The tragedy of the second period was we spent the whole period in their end and lost the period, 1-0”, DeBoer said.
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The Blues and Sharks are two teams that have had their fair share of playoff disappointment, but find themselves in the Western Conference Finals. Both teams in the Western Conference Finals have yet to win the Cup in franchise history, while the Eastern Conference clubs have at least one cup a piece.
San Jose clearly has the powerplay advantage in this series and these are the same players that caused no shortage of heartache for Nashville Predators’ fans everywhere as the Sharks top lines outplayed our own more often than not.
“I’m going to blame that one on the stick”, Pavelski said. More than anyone, people assume his career is over but every time he is able to bounce back and play well. Coach Peter DeBoer said Nieto probably will be available at some point during this series.
He was one of the few Blues who enjoyed a positive possession game and made his mark by scoring the game-winner, beating Martin Jones with a slapper off the rush. They will face a similar opponent here.
Tarasenko will likely see a big dose of Sharks defensemen Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Justin Braun whenever he and linemates Jaden Schwartz and Jori Lehtera are on the ice.
Blues goaltender Brian Elliott stopped 31 of 32 shots he faced to help lead his team to victory. “Even the third, fourth lines, they’re working hard and bringing energy for the team”. Joe Pavelski is tied for the league lead in goals with Nikita Kucherov with nine.
While the Sharks were cruising past the Kings in California, the Blues were busy making it past their long-time rivals the Chicago Blackhawks after a 7 game gauntlet against the former champions and then repeated the feat against the Dallas Stars who were the best team in the Western Conference in the regular season. I just hope that isn’t a curse rather than a blessing. You have your buddies and your family back home, everybody s watching and cheering for you. The Blues have not been to the finals since 1970 – or even to the conference finals since 2001.
Ken Hitchcock isn’t lying: the St. Louis Blues special teams play is rather decent, too. “I thought the first period was a little feeling out”. The Blues will definitely need to contain those two, as well as veteran center Joe Thornton and dynamic defenseman Brent Burns, if they plan on succeeding in this series.
Earlier in the day, Hitchcock suggested his power play is nearly as unsafe as the Sharks because he can send out two different looks with a pair of units that he plays almost evenly.
After going 8-for-21 with the man advantage against the Predators, and entering the series with a 31 percent conversion rate in the playoffs, the Sharks produced just five shots on goal during three power plays, including a third period look with the extra man that yielded just one shot.
Polak said he doesn’t believe he has any inside information on the Blues that the Sharks don’t already know. They like to play a heavy-forechecking game like L.A., but have the depth on defense like Nashville.
“It’s been a while since we’ve been to a conference final”, Marleau told the San Jose Mercury News.
Venue: Scottrade Center, St. Louis, Mo. They have a big team, a good forechecking team.
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If Bishop can’t go, Andrei Vasilevskiy will fill in as the Lightning try to take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.
