NHL Sports Betting: Stanley Cup Playoffs for May 23, 2016
And we’ve got a tied series in the Western Conference as the St. Louis Blues and San Jose Sharks get ready for Game Five at the Scottrade Center:
SAN JOSE SHARKS AT ST. LOUIS BLUES:
Man, this has been a strange series between two very enigmatic teams. While some sports media types couldn’t wait to start shoveling dirt over the St. Louis Blues after losing back to back games via shutout to go down 2-1 in the series we’re back where we started from but it doesn’t seem like we learned anything about either team in the first four games. The Bay Area sports media has come to the realization that the Sharks aren’t going to advance to the Stanley Cup Finals in five games and that this will be a long and difficult series.
So what do the players think? Logan Couture, who is the heart and soul of this San Jose team as well as being a damn good hockey player, had this to say about the Sharks’ Game Four loss:
“We have to find a way to score. We just didn’t play well. … We turned the puck over and left our defensive zone early. … I made a mistake on the faceoff.”
San Jose got plenty of shots on net but few ‘high percentage’ ones during the first two periods (10 in the first, 8 in the second). They sent a barrage of 16 shots at blues’ goalie Jake Allen in the third as the Blues took their foot off the gas and the Sharks tried to make an improbable comeback from a 5-1 deficit.
‘General bad play’ by the Sharks is as good of an explanation as any but as a handicapper it’s not a satisfying answer. By extension that suggests that the Blues lost in this series because they ‘just didn’t play well’. The Blues are a strange team because despite the fact that ‘just haven’t played well’ at various points during every series so far they’re tied 2-2 in this series and just a pair of wins from going to the Stanley Cup Finals.
So let’s try to look at it more holistically. The Blues’ biggest problem in Games Two and Three was (aside from ‘not scoring any goals’) was a complete lack of focus and intensity. It was strange watching the Sharks during those games–they had the look of a team on the verge of elimination when at the time they were tied 1-1. If you’re going to make mistakes make them because you’re too intense and playing ‘too hard’. The Blues made them for the other reason–the bad reason: they looked like a team that wasn’t focused on the job at hand. There’s likely some physical fatigue but that’s the same thing every team deals with at this point in the playoffs. The complete lack of mental and emotional energy was disturbing and not something I’ve seen often in the NHL.
Brian Elliott was pulled in favor of Jake Allen in Game Three and that seemed to help based on what happened in Game Four. Allen will get the start again in Game Five which is a no-brainer. People who don’t follow hockey closely may not be aware of how much a team’s goalie dictates a team’s intensity. Ken Hitchcock made reference to this as he explained his rationale for switching to Allen:
“We needed to play harder for a goalie. It didn’t matter if it was Ells or Jake or whatever.”
Hitch also noted that the team was becoming ‘overly reliant on Elliott’ which is something that I’ve said numerous times throughout the playoffs (I won’t be obnoxious and link to all of them). Elliott had been playing out of his mind in the late regular season and entering the playoffs the Blues started to develop a tendency to not mind their ‘p’s and q’s’ defensively because they knew their goalie would bail them out. But has this changed? It’s hard to say after one game with Allen between the pipes but the Blues were outshot by the Sharks 34-27. Making it even harder to assess–the form of the game with St. Louis getting out to a big lead and then withstanding the Sharks late onslaught warped these totals.
Shots on goal are an imperfect stat because there’s nothing to contextualize it. That’s why some handicappers and stat geeks are measuring ‘scoring chances’ like they do in soccer. But this is also an imperfect stat because it neglects the importance of shots on goals due to what I call ‘accumulation’. That’s what they call a knockout in boxing that wasn’t due to a single punch. A fighter absorbs a lot of punishment and at some point his body just can’t take any more. In hockey, even low percentage shots can play a part because the goalie has to think about them and deal with them in some way. For that reason it’s a good idea for a hockey team to a) get as many shots on goal as they can and b) make sure your opponent gets as few shots on goal as you can. The Blues still aren’t getting enough shots and they’re letting the Sharks get too many.
Another problem–it looks like Elliott is becoming mentally and physically fatigued. He’s not Pekka Rinne or Braden Holtby, goalies who are ‘ironmen’ that want to play every night. That’s why the workload split with Jake Allen has worked so well during the regular season. Elliott started playing great hockey in the latter part of the regular season (remember that run when it seemed like the Blues were going to go the rest of the season without allowing a goal?) and it made sense to ‘give him the ball’ in the playoffs. But now he’s played a lot of hockey in a short amount of time and in high stakes, pressure packed situations. Before this season he’d never started more than 8 playoff games in a year. This year he’s started 17. That also means he’s started 55 games between the regular season and playoffs. 35 of those starts have been since January 1.
It’ll be interesting to see what the Sharks do with their goaltending assignment. Martin Jones allowed 4 goals on 19 shots and got the hook midway through the second period. It wouldn’t surprise me were he suffering from physical, mental and emotional fatigue. Jones has always been a well thought of goalie but before ending up in San Jose he was in Los Angeles. The only problem? He was Jonathan Quick’s backup. So not only was he behind one of the best goalies in the NHL, but one that plays 60+ games every year. Jones is definitely starting goalie talented but he’s in ‘uncharted waters’ at this point. He started 18 games in his rookie season, he started 15 games last season. This regular season he started 65 games and 16 more in the playoffs. His only playoff work prior to this year was mop up work, making two appearances for the Kings. In other words, Jones has started 81 games this year. He may be ‘hitting the wall’ and the Sharks could be better off with Jonathan Bernier for Game Five.
Since this series is so hard to figure out I’ll take the price with San Jose in Game Five. The fact that they were the best road team in hockey this year makes me even happier about this play.
BET SAN JOSE SHARKS +120 OVER ST. LOUIS BLUES