NHL Hockey Betting: Stanley Cup Playoffs for May 21, 2016
It’s the Western Conference Finals Game Four on Saturday night.
ST. LOUIS BLUES AT SAN JOSE SHARKS:
First, I want to apologize for being off the grid for the past day or so. I was deep frying corn tortillas to make my own chips when I had the bright idea to pull one out of the 450 degree oil and taste it. I ended up with second degree burns on the tip of my tongue and inside of my lip. Not only was it painful but I couldn’t eat anything and could drink only water. All is well now.
The St. Louis Blues are in a pickle down 2-1 and playing on the Sharks’ home ice. In theory, they could win this game and come back and win the series. They were one of the best regular season road teams in the NHL going 25-11-5 away from home. And lest we forget, the Sharks were one of the worst home teams in the NHL during the regular season. The ‘party line’ is that the poor regular season home record was due to ‘variance‘ and that all is well now. The Sharks *have* won six straight at home but four were against erratic Nashville, a team they should have dispatched in five or six.
Trying to figure out the home/road dynamic of this series is not even worth the effort right now. That’s because the St. Louis Blues have become the ‘bumbling Blues’. They can’t score having been shut out over the past two games and 150 minutes of play. One of the local sports beat writers called them ‘stagnant’ and ‘sloppy’. What I noticed was the body language and facial expressions of the Blues as they watched from the bench. To look at them you’d think they were down 3-0 and running out of time. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the team leadership on and off the ice. David Backes is one of the classiest guys in sports off the ice but some of the Blues lethargy is on him as team captain. Sports and gambling have one commonality–your luck can change in an instant. It wasn’t long ago that Backes was getting effusive praise for his play on the ice and leadership ‘in the room’.
More disturbing is the coaching performance of Ken Hitchcock. I’m surprised that he’s not taking more of the blame since he’s spent the last two games completely dumbfounded. He kind of reminds me of Lou Holtz in his final year as head coach at the University of South Carolina–looking completely disinterested and like he can’t wait to be done with this gig. Consider some of his quotes after Game Three:
“We’re playing a team that’s got a bead in their game and a focus in their game that’s been around for seven games now. We’ve got to change the momentum here. They’ve been dialing in with this game for seven games now.”
Is Ken just figuring this out now? Maybe he was oblivious after the Game One victory but he didn’t catch a clue after the 4-0 Game Two debacle on home ice? This comment has a tone of “wow…they’re playing so well what are we supposed to do?” Game Two wasn’t a shining hour for Hitchcock as he couldn’t find decent matchups despite having the last line change.
Asked if Game Four was an example of facing adversity in a ‘must win’ situation he came up with this convoluted statement:
“The series is 2-1. You got to win four games. This is nothing. When we get down three and three-quarters and we only got a quarter left, you can kind of ask me that question. Right now it’s 2-1.”
Ken would have the benefit of the doubt if his team had scored even one goal in the past two and a half games. That’s significant since the Blues hadn’t been shut out in back to back playoff games since…uh….never. This is the first time it’s happened since the team entered the league in 1967-68. And the last thing you like to see in a coach is to not show a sense of urgency when he should. Being calm, cool and collected is one thing. Being oblivious to the situation or–more likely in this case–clueless about how to respond is very disturbing.
Hitchcock also added that it’s been a while since his team played at an elite level:
“We were like that in (Games) 5 and 7 against Chicago (in the first-round), dialed in at this level. So we’re capable of it. We can do it.”
Hate to bring this up, Ken, but your team’s level of play isn’t a random phenomenon like ball lightning. If your team can’t bring the intensity in the Conference Finals much of that is on you. It’s pitiful that the Blues have bumbled their way into the ‘final four’. But Hitchcock should have enough awareness of the mood of his team that he started working on this problem early in the Dallas series.
Finally, here’s Ken’s assessment of the problem:
“The feeling I have is if we clean up the transition stuff, stop giving up these odd-man rushes like we did, we gave up five odd-man rushes in the first half of the game yesterday, all based on us having the puck, not them having the puck. If we can clean that stuff up, I think we’re going to really give this a go.”
Translated: ‘if we tighten up elements of our offensive performance that should have been addressed during the regular season then maybe–just maybe–we have a chance.’
I don’t dislike Hitchcock but in my view he’s a better teacher type of coach. He’s good at getting bad to mediocre teams up to the next level where they’re competitive teams. What he’s never really done is take a good team to elite status. Case in point–he’s made ten trips to the playoffs since the turn of the century and has never gone past the Conference Finals. In fact, he’s only reached the Conference Finals once prior to this season–in 2004. In six trips to the playoffs since then with three different teams prior to this season his teams have been eliminated in the Conference Quarterfinals five times and in the Conference Semifinals once.
The Blues are a good team to be getting at +140 and Jones can’t shut them out forever. We’ll give them a shot.
BET ST. LOUIS BLUES +145 OVER SAN JOSE SHARKS