Puck Picks
YTD Record ——— 93-130-2 (+4.6 Units)
St. Louis Blues vs Tampa Bay Lightning
The Lightning dressing room likely received a nice little bump of positivity yesterday, as all-world goalie Andrei Vasilevksy practiced with the team for the first time this season. The Russian netminder’s return though won’t come this evening and without him, the harsh reality for the Lightning is that this team just doesn’t deserve to be a road favorite against almost any team in the NHL.
Hell, even with Vasilevsky, if Tampa’s play in their defensive zone doesn’t improve this team will continue to struggle. Entering tonight’s game in St. Louis the Lightning rank 5th from bottom in terms of expected goals allowed per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, and as I spoke about a few days ago, the change in defensive zone coverage over the offseason continues to be the reason for it. The Box-and-Out just isn’t working, illustrated by the Lightning also ranking 27th in terms of high-danger chances allowed, and frankly, it might be the case that the years of long playoff runs are finally taking their toll on Viktor Hedman. The once-perennial Norris Trophy candidate’s play has dropped off, and after years of his team dominating the shot attempts battle when he was on the ice, the Lightning are now winning it just 51% of the time. Pair this with some early-season struggles from Sergachev and a bottom-6 forward group still trying to find their footing, and suddenly you’ve got a team that struggles to keep the puck out of their net.
Meanwhile, the host St. Louis Blues have been quietly putting together a pretty solid start to their season. Entering tonight’s game the Blues have 15 points through 13 games, and while the underlying numbers aren’t the prettiest, so long as Jordan Binnington keeps playing like this, the Blues have a chance to win every single night. The enigmatic goaltender has made 9 starts this season for the Blues and has been utterly brilliant throughout, posting a .923 SV% to go along with 6.7 goals saved above expected. Perhaps no goalie in recent memory better exemplifies the adage “goalies are voodoo” than Binnington, because as we saw when the Blues won the Cup, when the man is feeling it, he’s one of the best goalies in the NHL. Moreover, while the Blues’ offensive group isn’t the deepest, they do have some highly skilled players underperforming both prior expectations and underlying numbers in Jordan Kyrou and Pavel Buchnevich. Both guys are capable of being game-breakers and should be more than capable of taking advantage of some Tampa defensive frailties.
So with all that being said, the two angles I’ll be playing for this game are the Blues ML, as well as the Over. Neither team is playing the best defensively, and both teams have offensive skill players that can bulge the potato sack if given the opportunity. The one differentiator for me is the goaltending, where St. Louis has a sizeable edge in my estimation, at least for the time being.
Blues ML +122 (play to +115)
Over 6.5 -105 (Play to -110)
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