St. Louis Blues: What If The NHL Playoffs Began Immediately?

Conference Finals

Blues vs. Golden Knights

For whatever reason, the Blues can’t seem to not go to overtime against Vegas. In 2018-19, the Blues swept the regular season series 3-0.

Vegas probably should have faced the Blues in the conference final, but that’s another matter. The two seasons on either side of the Cup win, the Golden Knights have gone 2-1-0 against the Blues, but the Blues are 1-0-2.

All their losses against Vegas have happened in overtime. It’s only three seasons, but every single loss to Vegas has been in OT.

So, logic would say the Blues sweep if they can avoid the extra period, right? Well, it doesn’t work that way in the playoffs.

While Vegas strikes the average fan as the superior offensive team, they only have two more goals scored than the Blues at the hiatus. Their defense is quite lacking too having surrendered 211 goals, even though the neutral fan would say they might have an edge in goal.

Vegas’ problem is they’ve driven Marc-Andre Fleury into the ground. He has decent numbers, but the guy has started 48 games. His backup for most of the season only took 19 games off his load. That’s a big reason why they picked up Robin Lehner at the break, to give Fleury a rest down the stretch. Just for the record, the Blues having played Jordan Binnington in 50 games is a worry too, but Binnington is younger and has less of a history of having such a workload to wear him out.

Ultimately, goaltending will probably decide this series. The Blues have enough offense to hand with Vegas, but would rely on their defending, which has not been as stout. Vegas can outscore anyone, but if Fleury is not bailing them out, the Blues could light them up and have – the Blues were ahead in both OT losses in 2020.

Ultimately, though Vegas is a very good team, the Blues experience trumps their depth. St. Louis’ defending does just well enough and the Blues avoid OT to win the series. It will take six, maybe more likely seven games, but the Blues get it done to repeat as conference champions.

Tampa Bay vs. Philadelphia

Given everything the Flyers went through to get to this point, surely it must be their time to shine, right? Not so fast my friend.

This series is where the magic runs out. The Blues proved that sometimes getting that winning feeling is enough to carry anyone to the finish line.

However, Tampa will be too much in this series. The Lightning already have season success over the Flyers and recent too.

The Lightning won 1-0, proving they could shut down the Flyers offense, and 5-3, showing they could outscore Philly when they were starting to get hot in February. Additionally, Tampa has built itself to be a playoff contender, so they will have enough grit to take on the Broadstreet Bullies .

Philadelphia is not devoid of experience, but many of their players are either young or haven’t had much success in the playoffs. You can always circle back to the Blues for reasons teams can overcome that sort of thing, but history says that teams that have been there before get it done.

Tampa is on a mission to prove that their embarrassing first-round exit in 2019 is not what they want to be remembered for. They eliminate the Flyers in five games.