The St. Louis Blues and Chicago Blackhawks take to the ice again tonight in their playoff series. Currently the NHL Playoff Odds for the game have the Blackhawks favored to even the series tonight.
The rivalry between these two clubs is no shock to anybody. The Blues picked up a pair of one-goal games to open this series, each of them going into overtime. Chicago found a way to avoid overtime in the third game, picking up a 2-0 victory and keeping the Blues off the scoreboard. Brent Seabrook still isn't eligible to return to the ice as he made a dirty play on Blues captain David Backes. Having one of their best blue liners out of the lineup didn't seem to bother the Blackhawks in the third game of this series, but playing without him in consecutive games could prove to be a problem.
Chicago, the defending Stanley Cup champions, need to buckle down in this game tonight. They've been in every game to this point and could easily hold a 3-0 series lead over the Blues.
Both Ryan Miller and Corey Crawford have had good and bad moments in between the pipes for their respective teams so far this series. Miller has a 1.88 goals against average while saving just over 92.5 percent of the shots he has faced. Crawford's goals against average is 2.12 and he has saved better than 93 percent of the shots he has faced in the three games. Yet, Miller has played just good enough for the Blues to hold a 2-1 series lead.
But as the old adage goes, an NHL Playoff series doesn't become interesting until a road team gets a victory. Chicago is favored to win tonight and we see no reason they can't get that done. They could hold a massive lead in this series but don't have the luxury of that, so they have to play a great game tonight or they'll be in serious trouble.
On Tuesday, Chicago coach Joel Quenneville said there's a very real possibility that top forwards Patrick Kane and Johnathan Toews will again be together on a line with Bryan Bickell for tonight's game. They have been effective when they're on the ice together and we expect them to have a solid game tonight.
In tonight's game, we like Chicago to have another dominating performance at home. They picked up a 2-0 victory in the third game of this series and we don't expect the Blues to get shutout again tonight, but we like Chicago to make a statement win.
Free Pick: Chicago 5, St. Louis 1
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