Bruising, battle-tested Blues facing faster, feisty Canucks
But Vancouver has won 3 straight inside bubble while Blues are 0-for-3
The Associated Press
Hockey is trending to look like the Vancouver Canucks, with smaller players and more skill, speed and offence.
That didn’t stop the big, heavy St. Louis Blues from bruising their way to the
Stanley Cup last season and to the top of the Western Conference when the NHL season halted in March.
When Vancouver and defending champion St. Louis meet in the first round, it will be a matchup of opposites. The winner of the series will be the team that can better dictate its preferred method of play, and the Blues have the experience in setting that tone. Game 1 is Wednesday.
“We have to establish our physicality right away,” reigning playoff MVP Ryan O’Reilly said. “We’ve got to show them that this is going to be a hard series and they’re going to have to earn everything.”
The Canucks earned their spot in the round of 16 by beating the Minnesota Wild in the best-of-five qualifying round. Now the fifth seed in the deep, unpredictable
Western Conference, they can use the experience gleaned from a rough and tumble Minnesota series to measure themselves against the Blues.
“The previous series was a good warmup for us, for sure,” Vancouver coach Travis Green said. “Minnesota defends very well, they’ve got a deep set of forwards, and the hockey at this time of the year was very intense. Your body had to get used to it, and I think it was a good test for our group and this will be another one. There’s no bigger test than playing the team that had just won the Stanley Cup.”
St. Louis has virtually the same team back from the first title in franchise history. But this group lost all three of its round-robin games to fall to the fourth seed in the West.
Coach Craig Berube wasn’t happy with much of what his team did in those tuneup games but noticed a different level of focus now that elimination is possible.
“They know now: You’ll go home if you don’t play well,” Berube said. “I think that obviously makes you dialed in a little bit more.”
Vancouver isn’t a natural rival, and there haven’t been many chances to build up
Vancouver Canucks (36-27-6, third in the Pacific Division) vs. St. Louis Blues (42-1910, first in the Central Division)
Edmonton, Wednesday, 7:30 p.m. PT BOTTOM LINE: The St. Louis Blues face the Vancouver Canucks. The teams meet Wednesday for the fourth time this season. The Blues are 29-11-6 in Western Conference games. St. Louis has converted on 24.3% of power-play opportunities, scoring 49 powerplay goals. The Canucks are 11-8-1 against opponents from the Pacific Division. Vancouver is seventh in the league recording 8.9 points per game, averaging 3.2 goals and 5.7 assists. TOP PERFORMERS: Vince
Dunn leads the Blues with a
some post-season hatred. The Canucks will be playing in their first best-of-seven playoff series since 2015. Despite that lack of experience, the Canucks are talented enough to put a scare into the Blues if they don’t take them seriously.
“We definitely don’t want to underestimate them,” St. Louis defenceman Vince Dunn said. “They have great goaltending, too, so from top to bottom they’re lethal defensively and offensively. At any point in time, we can’t take our foot off the gas.”
PETTERSSON VS. O’REILLY Dynamic Canucks forward Elias Pettersson could see a lot of O’Reilly, one of the best defensive stoppers in the game. Pettersson is excited for the challenge.
“He’s an elite player, elite scorer,”
O’Reilly said. “You can see the way he reads the game and the positions he puts himself in, he’s always a threat. Playing against that, you’ve always got to be aware of him and tight to him, make sure, any chance you can, step in his way and just making it difficult on him.”
PETTERSSON VS. BINNINGTON Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington said he thought he should have won the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year last season. Pettersson won it and is now trying to downplay any perceived contention with plus-15 in 71 games this season. Colton Parayko has five goals and one assist over the last 10 games for St. Louis.
Elias Pettersson leads the Canucks with a plus16 in 68 games this season. Tanner Pearson has five goals and one assist over the last 10 games for Vancouver.
DURING THE PLAYOFFS:
Averaging 2.0 goals, 3.3 assists, 5.7 penalties and 11.3 penalty minutes while giving up 3.0 goals per game with a .921 save percentage.
Averaging 3.0 goals, 5.0 assists, 8.0 penalties and 19.5 penalty minutes while giving up 2.5 goals per game with a .918 save percentage.
INJURIES: Ivan Barbashev, personal.
Micheal Ferland, undisclosed.
Quinn Hughes the Cup-winning netminder.
“Both of us are trying to play our best every game,” Pettersson said. “It’s not up to us who wins the Calder.”
Binnington didn’t get his NHL chance until age 25, and that came midway through the 2018-19 season. Not being called up until January last season likely cost him the award.
“I think he doesn’t take that personally. I think that just motivates him more,” Dunn said. “He hasn’t had the easiest path to get where he is right now, so I think that just helps him motivate himself to want to push himself to be even better this year.”
D FOR DISCIPLINE
Vancouver took a play-in-round-high 28 penalties, an average of seven a game, and St. Louis committed 15 in its three games. Related: the Blues ranked third on the power play and the Canucks fourth during the regular season.
The lesson? Stay out of the box.
“We haven’t been disciplined yet and going forward here starting in the first game against Vancouver, we need to be a disciplined hockey team,” Berube said. “We can accept taking away a scoring chance or things like that or physicality at times, getting calls for that, but this hooking and tripping and holding and stuff like that, we’ve got to get rid of those.”