The Chicago Blackhawks and St. Louis Blues meet on the ice tonight in Game 3 of their First Round NHL Playoffs series. The game is scheduled for an 8:30 p.m. start time and it will be televised nationally on CNBC. The odds for the game currently have Chicago favored to get their first win tonight.
Chicago has dug themselves a pretty big hole. The defending Stanley Cup champions are in an 0-2 hole to the St. Louis Blues and they'll be without defenseman Brent Seabrook for the next three games. Seabrook went hard after St. Louis' David Backes and blasted him with an illegal hit. Seabrook received a five-minute major and game misconduct penalty after he wiped out Backes at 15:09 of the third, which ended up resulting in a Blues power play goal which tied the game with just 6.4 seconds left in the contest. Missing one of their best guys on the blue line is not going to be pleasing for the Blackhawks.
The Blues' captain doesn't have an official status for tonight's game at the time of this post. He certainly looked to be having some concussion-like symptoms after the hit. These teams don't like each other to begin with and now there's a reason for the Blues to go after some Blackhawks tonight. This game is being played in Chicago and St. Louis will probably get the boos rained down on them no matter what happens. But expect St. Louis to play a physical game and try to knock the Blackhawks around tonight. St. Louis coach Ken Hitchcock isn't pleased with Chicago getting away with some shotty play and that only makes the rest of this series have a lot more intensity. These squads combined for 17 penalties in the second game. Chicago had season-highs in penalties with 11 and minutes in the box at 41.
Last year Chicago was 11-2 in home games during the playoffs. This year they had an impressive 27-7-7 mark at the United Center, including going 2-0-1 against the Blues. St. Louis was OK on the road this season, finishing 10 games above the .500 mark. They'll look to get another solid game from Vladimir Tarasenko tonight. He's been having a great series to this point and should probably play a bigger role now that Backes is presumably not going to play tonight.
The Blues are hoping this year's playoffs aren't a repeat of last season. They won both games against the LA Kings last year to open the post season but then lost the next four games and were eliminated. Ryan Miller was brought in to help this team advance in the post season and he has been just good enough for the Blues through two games.
Tonight we expect a Chicago win. They have their bats against the wall and are playing at home.
Free Pick: Chicago 4, St. Louis 1
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