NHL Hockey Betting: Stanley Cup Playoffs for May 9, 2016
Two NHL playoff games for Monday Night:
DALLAS STARS AT ST. LOUIS BLUES:
The St. Louis Blues are one win away from advancing to the Western Conference Finals. The Dallas Stars will try to win on the Blues’ home ice to force a decisive game seven deep in the heart of Texas. The winner of this series will advance to the Western Conference Finals to face the winner of the Nashville/San Jose series. Game Six of that series will be played later this evening with the Sharks up 3-2 playing on the road at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.
On the surface, this has been an evenly matched series. If you drill down a bit, there are quite a few reasons that the Stars are fortunate to still be in this at all. One problem was the adoption of Shania Twain as the team’s musical good luck charm. That’s shameful since the Stars have the best fight song in the NHL recorded by heavy metal legends Pantera. Had they been listening to the riffs of the late, great Dimebag Darrell Abbott they would have been in much better form to play hockey.
The other problem is more tangible–the need to cause more trouble in front of Blues’ goaltender Brian Elliott. Elliott has been in phenomenal form since the latter part of the regular season. The Chicago Blackhawks had the right plan even though it didn’t get them past the Blues–they knew that they needed to take a lot of shots on Elliott. The Stars got 42 shots on goal in Game One and their shot total has been on the decline ever since. Obviously, part of this is due to the tactical defense of the Blues who have held Dallas under 30 shots on goal for the last three games. That negates Dallas’ potent offense and makes life easier on Brian Elliott in the Blues’ net.
You have to wonder how things would have been different had Tyler Seguin not made his ill-advised attempt to return prematurely in the first round of the playoffs. The Stars have some good news in that Patrick Eaves will travel with the team to St. Louis. The bad news–Seguin will not be with the team in St. Louis and has only just recently resumed skating. The Stars are lucky that the Dallas media isn’t particularly aggressive with their hockey team since there are some serious questions about Seguin’s attempt to return to action ahead of his rehab timeline. If it was his decision, someone on the team’s coaching staff or in management should have put the kibosh on it. If it was someone on the coaching or training staff that’s some dereliction of duty. Had Seguin stuck to the rehab schedule he would have been nearing a return (if he hadn’t returned already) and have been completely healthy. Now the Stars are trying to play without their #2 scorer and a player adept at distributing the puck. It’s not possible to say that a Stars series win would have been a foregone conclusion with Seguin but it’s definitely made it much more difficult playing without him.
Despite the Dallas media not being as hockey savvy as their counterparts in Toronto or Montreal they’re not buying what head coach Lindy Ruff is selling. Ruff could do no better after Game 5 than suggest that the team’s offensive stars stop hitting posts with their shots. Mac Engel of the Star-Telegram hit the nail on the head with an excellent column castigating Ruff for dismissing the team’s situation facing elimination as bad ‘puck luck’:
The Stars are good and they are talented, but they were not ready for this type of responsibility. They were not ready for Game 5 of the NHL’s Western Conference semifinals, not in their mindset and not in the way they are built.
With this second-round Stanley Cup playoff series tied at two, the Stars returned home with the chance to take the series lead. Instead they played the part of willing spectator during a decisive second period when they had the game shoved down their throat.
They have never been here before and Saturday it showed. The Blues won 4-1 and go back to St. Louis with the chance to close out this series Monday night.
“Puck luck,” Stars coach Lindy Ruff said after the game.
That’s an adorable little slogan, but it’s also a cop-out to explain the difference in this series.
The NHL’s Stanley Cup playoffs are hard, and his team is not hardened. Ruff knows it, but he can’t coach experience.
The Stars are a talented team and Ruff isn’t a bad coach–even if his nomination over Pittsburgh’s Mike Sullivan for the Jack Adams Trophy completely inexplicable. The reality is that Dallas is lucky to have won two games in this series. They don’t have a definite top goalie–it looks for now like Kari Lehtonen will start Game Six but who knows? That’s no counter for the Blues’ Brian Elliott. The Blues win and advance to the Conference Finals.
BET ST. LOUIS BLUES -150 OVER DALLAS STARS
SAN JOSE SHARKS AT NASHVILLE PREDATORS:
I’ve given up trying to figure out this Nashville Predators’ team. I was ready to write them off in Games Three and Four but they won both including an amazingly gutsy performance in that triple overtime thriller. On paper, San Jose is the better team. They were also the best road team in the NHL during the regular season. They obviously know what happened to the Anaheim Ducks when they were forced to a Game 7 against Nashville. The Predators are a schizophrenic team to be sure but it’s hard to blame them for their lousy performance last time out coming off the emotional high and physical demands of the triple OT game. Nashville has won 6 of the last 7 head to head against the Sharks at the Bridgestone Arena. At a ‘pick’em’ price I’ll take the home team.
BET NASHVILLE PREDATORS -110 OVER SAN JOSE SHARKS