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West Division round one predictions: Colorado vs St. Louis

Published May 17, 2021 at 8:14 PM
BY MIKE ARMENTI
The 7th series on my list of predictions is a very intriguing one, especially after comments made by Blues captain Ryan O'Reilly, guaranteeing a first round win over the odds on favourite to hoist the Stanley Cup, the Colorado Avalanche.

West Division - 1st place Colorado vs. 4th place St. Louis:

Colorado

The reigning 2020-21 President's Trophy winners come into the Stanley Cup Playoffs with the luxury of having home ice advantage throughout the entire playoffs after finishing atop the league with 82 points in 56 games during the regular season.

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The Avs are absolutely loaded with talent up front, on the blueline and in goal. They are a team with very few weaknesses and a lot of firepower. Simply put, this Avs team that GM Joe Sakic and company have put together looks almost like the perfect team.

Nathan MacKinnon is arguably one of the top three players in the NHL in terms of combining speed, skill, size and finishing ability. When he's healthy and he's on, he looks almost unstoppable out there. Flanked by another superstar, Mikko Rantanen, MacKinnon is a threat to either finish the play or create the play, which definitely keeps goalies guessing when he has the puck on his stick in the offensive zone.

On the blueline, sophomore Cale Makar has broken so many opposing ankles this season with his ability to walk the line and make plays with absolutely zero room. This kid is a problem for the opposition every night - and he might not even be the Avs' best defenseman! They also have a nice compliment of Samuel Girard, Devon Toews and Ryan Graves to bide them time until Bowen Byram and Erik Johnson are eligible to return from injury.

Goaltending was a huge question mark last season, having to rely on depth goaltender Michael Hutchinson to carry them during the 2019-20 playoffs, which he was just not equipped to do. This year, the Avs have a healthy Philipp Grubauer ready to tend the twine, with added goalie depth in Jonas Johanssen and Devan Dubnyk having been acquired prior to the trade deadline.

Sure, they Avs may be in trouble if Grubauer goes down, but that's a bridge they'll cross when they get to it.

St. Louis

The Blues are undoubtedly the underdog in this series, but so too were they underdogs when they pulled off the impossible and won the Stanley Cup back in 2019 after being dead last in the NHL just after New Years that season.

Losing captain Alex Pietrangelo would have otherwise put the Blues at an enormous deficit on the blueline if they hadn't gone out and signed a slick-skating powerplay specialist with a ton of playoff experience in Torey Krug to replace Pietrangelo during the offseason.

The Blues do currently have a couple of blueliners injured in Vince Dunn and Carl Gunnarsson, their top-four of Krug-Faulk and Scandella-Parayko will have to be up to the task of handling the heavy minutes in this series and block a lot of shots against a very dangerous Colorado offense if they hope to have success in round 1.

The Blues have a lot of firepower up front as well with Ryan O'Reilly, Vladimir Tarasenko, Mike Hoffman, Brayden Schenn, Jaden Schwartz and Jordan Kyrou, so the Avs definitely should not sleep on the Blues here to avoid a catastrophic round one collapse.

The X-factor here for the Blues is highly competitive and fiery goaltender Jordan Binnington, who has shown his ability to come in and steal a series. If Binnington is as good this year as he was in 2019, the Avs could find themselves in some real trouble.

Prediction:

I think the Blues will absolutely leave it all out on the ice in this series. This is a team who knows what it takes to win and has the personnel to do so.

Unfortunately for the Blues, I don't think the will can match the skill of the Avs and I think this series will kick off what is sure to be a dominant postseason by the President's Trophy winners.

Avs take this one home in 5, but I do see at least three of these games needing OT to decide the winner.
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