3 Reasons The St. Louis Blues Can Beat The Colorado Avalanche

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The St. Louis Blues are often underdogs, even when they’ve been great. Some of it is due to lesser high-end talent than their opponents, but there are times it has to do with where they are from.

The perception for a lot of teams from the Midwest, including the Blues, is they aren’t as good. We can talk about this bias or that, but plenty of it boils down people in the national media just not paying as much attention to the Blues.

We all do this in different sports. Focusing just on hockey, we complain when the Blues lose to a team like Arizona, sometimes just because it is Arizona. Regardless of what players are on the teams, TV ratings are low when non-traditional teams like the Blues or Carolina or Calgary or Tampa are in the final.

That changes, slowly, over time. The Blues have gained more respect, just like the Lightning and the Hurricanes in recent times. It took a long period of success, however, and even then it’s not easily given.

None of this is to suggest the Avalanche should not be favorites. They finished the regular season with the best record in their conference and the division race was not even close in the second half of the season.

They have some of the best offensive players in the game. Colorado plays a good structure and, if nothing else, just possess you to death once they’ve scored their goals. It’s hard to win when you can’t get the puck.

Yet, it’s the amount they are favored by. Few are calling for a sweep, but I’ve seen some prognosticators go as high as 90% on an Avs win.

Statistically, that’s just not right. One of the top two teams in the league during the regular season is just not that far ahead of another team that is still in the top 10. St. Louis has overall reasons they can win the Cup again.

The Avs will be extremely tough to beat. There are reasons it can happen though.

St. Louis Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington (50)Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports /

Goaltending

Darcy Kuemper is a decent goalie. His numbers back that up.

He has a career save percentage of .918 and a goals against of 2.48. His best season saw him at .932 and 2.10.

However, it should be noted that those numbers were in 19 games with the Los Angeles Kings. The truth is that Kuemper really doesn’t have a huge sample size.

He’s basically been a backup or a 1B goalie most of his career. He’s only played 30 or more games in two seasons of his career. Kuemper was essentially .500 in both of those years.

You can make the case it was on a mediocre Minnesota or Arizona team. The fact of the matter is while his numbers have not been bad, they’re not fantastic and he’s never been “the” guy other than one season. Arizona went back to splitting time or only using Kuemper to spell their starter.

Jordan Binnington and Ville Husso are not lightyears above Kuemper, but they’re both NHL starters. I would bet that the majority of teams that missed the playoffs would be more than happy to have either Binnington or Husso as their goaltender going into 2022-23.

Both Binnington and Husso are more than capable of stealing wins for the Blues. Kuemper can get hot, just like any goaltender, but the Avalanche didn’t really win a bunch of games in 2021-22 because of goaltending.

Boil it all down and the Blues simply have the advantage in net. Avs fans might disagree, but I’m taking either Binnington or Husso over Kuemper – definitely over Pavel Francouz – any day of the week.

Binnington has proven that he can win when it matters most. Husso had a fantastic year when the Blues were struggling and his win percentage is only three points lower than Kuemper and Kuemper’s team had more wins overall.

If this series boils down to a goaltending battle, the Blues are going to come out on top, even if both goaltenders play to the best of their ability.

Vladimir Tarasenko #91 of the St. Louis Blues(Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images) /

Blues surprisingly better in certain areas

The perception about the Avalanche is they are an offensive juggernaut. They are unstoppable at five-on-five and unbeatable if you give them even one power play.

Those statements are not 100% false, but they’re not as true as even Blues fans would believe. The Avalanche did score a ton of goals and their power play was elite.

They scored 312 goals in the entire 2021-22 regular season. That was third in the entire NHL.

The Blues were fourth in the NHL in regular season goals. The Blues only scored one fewer goal than the vaunted Avalanche offense, with 311 to their name.

The Avalanche power play went in for 67 goals. The Blues had 65 goals on the man advantage.

The Blues actually had a better power play too. The Avs drew 279 penalties, while the Blues were up a man 241 times, giving them a power play percentage of 27%. That was second in the league.

The Avs are the number one power play in the playoffs through the first round. No offense, but they were playing the Nashville Predators, who only made one of their four first-round games even close. The Blues are fourth in playoff power play percentage, by the way.

Swinging back to the regular season, the Blues were actually better down the stretch. In the last 50 games of the regular season, the Blues averaged just over four goals per game while the Avalanche averaged in the high 3’s.

That’s not a gigantic difference. Minute differences become large in the playoffs though.

Blues fans have every right to fear the Avalanche’s offensive ability. However, the Blues are just as capable of putting up goals, which can take advantage of a goaltender, circling back to the first topic.

St. Louis Blues center Tyler Bozak (21)Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports /

Depth

As much as we love everyone that suits up in the Note, most Blues fans would be hard pressed not to take a line of Nathan MacKinnon, Gabriel Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen over the best the Blues can offer. All three had 30 goals or more.

Personally, I love Justin Faulk and Torey Krug is a top notch puck mover. I’m taking Cale Makar over them in a fantasy draft.

Even though many fan bases consider Nazem Kadri on the level of Tom Wilson, he’s having a career year. The Avs have the higher end talent.

The Blues have better depth. If you can find a way to shut down the top three or the top six, the Blues win as long as their role players play up to their capabilities.

As impressive as the Avs numbers are, we should not ignore the Blues having nine 20-plus goal scorers. The Avs had seven.

While we gawk at the Avs having three 30-plus goal scorers, the Blues have two. Vladimir Tarasenko, who was left for dead in the preseason, and Pavel Buchnevich both scored 30 goals.

Tarasenko is clipping along pretty well, but Buchnevich has not yet hit his stride in the playoffs. Get him going and look out.

But, even if the Blues and Avalanche cancel the other out as far as top-six production, the Blues can take over with their bottom six. The lines change and guys rotate in and out, but I’ll take a bottom six consisting of players like Brandon Saad, Tyler Bozak, Alexei Toropchenko, Nathan Walker, Dakota Joshua.

It depends on matchups, but there are nights when the Blues will have players like Brayden Schenn, Ivan Barbashev or even Vladimir Tarasenko or Jordan Kyrou on their third line. I will take that over the bottom six of Colorado any day.

We marvel at Makar and the top three, but the Blues still have higher point totals in their lineup. The Avs had eight players of 50-plus points.

St. Louis also had eight 50-plus point scorers. However, their next three scorers had 40-plus points whereas there was a larger drop off after those top eight for Colorado.

If the Blues let the Avs get their top guys going, then it’ll be a tough series. If St. Louis can keep them quiet and make this about the bottom six, the Blues are winning this.

It will all be about whether the Blues can wear down the Avs. If you can roll out four lines, consistently, as the Blues are capable of, they have the advantage. The Avalanche are more likely to shorten their bench when Craig Berube can still throw out his third and fourth lines.

Next. 3 reasons to stick with Binnington. dark

Beating the Avs is definitely going to be hard. If this is not a six or seven game series, I would be shocked.

The Blues have a path to victory and it all depends on the goaltending, scoring to their capabilities and the depth shining through.

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