St Louis Blues

Blues vs Predators Game 3 preview, staying out of danger
April 30, 2017, 1:59 PM ET [25 Comments]
Jason Millen
St Louis Blues Blogger • RSS • Archive • CONTACT
Follow me on twitter

The Blues vs Predators series shifts to Nashivlle with a 2pm start today. With no game day skate, we’ll assume the lineups will be the same but you never know. I expect the Blues to run with these lines to start:

Schwartz – Stastny – Tarasenko
Steen – Berglund - Perron
Barbashev – Lehtera - Sobotka
Upshall – Brodziak – Reaves
Bouwmeester – Pietrangelo
Edmundson - Parayko
Gunnarsson - Bortuzzo
Allen

In looking at the playoffs for both the Predators and Blues so far, I noted the following:
- The Predators have progressively reduced their mid danger shots against from their regular season to Round 1 to Round 2, giving up 2 less shots per game through the first 2 games.
- The Blues on the other hand were almost the same in Round 1 but are giving up 4 more mid danger shots per game in Round 2.
- The Predators are giving up one less high danger shot per game compared to the regular season.
- Last round the Blues gave up one more high danger shot per game relative to the regular season. This round they are approaching one less per game.
- The Predators have improved all of their road corsi statistics (5v5 and all, both score adjusted and not) from Round 1.
- The Blues have shown a bigger improvement in all of their home statistics (5v5 and all, both score adjusted and not) from Round 1.
- The Predators gave up a lot more road high danger shots against in Round 2, almost double the amount per game in Round 1. The Blue did as well when you look at their home averages.
- Both goals high danger save percentages plummeted relative to Round 1, going down at least 20% and both are well below their season averages.
- In Round 1, the Predators gave up significantly reduced their shots against per game at home, giving up less 43% less than their regular season average. At home, high danger shots were reduced by almost 2/3 and mid danger shots were reduced by more than half.
- In Round 1 on the road, the Blues reduced their mid and high danger shots against by approximate 40%.

I think the last two statistics help better explain why both teams won in Round 1 as they significantly reduced the quality chances given up. Which team will limit the quality chances against and capitalize on the better chances for? We’ll see in a few hours.

Some interesting Round 1 Stats:
- An amazing 43% of the games went to overtime.
- In the Eastern conference, 52% went to overtime.
- What home ice advantage? 61% of the overtime games went to the road team.
- What home ice advantage part 2? The Road team won 55% of the games even though the home teams averaged more goals per game.
- Overall goals per game was 4.9.
- 64% of the games had 5 or less goals.
- In the West, the goals average was 4.4 and spit evenly among the home and road teams.

It’s a great day for hockey.
Fellow Hockeybuzz blogger Minnesota Wild's Dan Wallace agreed to a 1st round, friendly charity wager. Since the Blues won, Dan will be making a donation to Dream Factory St. Louis (http://dreamfactoryincstl.org/). Dream Factory grants dreams to critically and chronically ill children from the ages of three to eighteen. They have one of the highest program expenditure ratios I have ever seen, an amazing 97% is used for actual program services. Usually, more than 3% is used for administrative and fundraising efforts but not at Dream Factory.

Fellow Hockeybuzz blogger Nashville Predator's Paul McCann has agreed to continue to pay it forward with me with a bet on this series with the Predators. Paul has chosen Best Buddies of Tennessee (https://bestbuddies.org/find-programs/tennessee/) as his charity. Best Buddies works to establish a global volunteer movement that creates opportunities for one-to-one friendships, integrated employment and leadership development for people with intellectual and development capabilities.