Blues Game 5 Preview

After falling behind 2-0 in the first two games in Winnipeg, our St. Louis Blues battled back with two dominant wins at home to even up their opening playoff series 2-2. Heading back to Winnipeg, what do the Blues need to do to gain control of this series and advance to the 2nd round of the Western Conference playoffs?

Games 3 and 4 Recap

After taking a 5-3 loss in Game 1, then a 2-1 loss in Game 2, the Blues bounced back in a major way when they returned home to St. Louis. Pavel Buchnevich put them ahead 48 seconds in to Game 3 with his 1st goal of the playoffs, and he added his second just 2 minutes later with a redirect goal in front of the net on the Power Play, putting the Blues up 2-0. Cam Fowler recorded his 3rd point after assisting on both of Buch's goals with a goal late in the 1st, Blues led 3-0 after 1 period.

2nd period was a rock fight -- looked like we took our foot off the gas just a little bit. Didn't get as many shots on goal, seemed happy to just stave off Winnipeg's scoring chances and clinging to our lead. 3rd period came and the Jets got one back 4 minutes in, but STL responded with yet another Buchnevich goal (hat-trick) to go up 4-1. Jordan Kyrou added another minutes later, and Alexey Toropchenko got his 1st playoff goal a few after that. Colton Parayko put the cherry on top with a PP goal late in the 3rd, the final blow of a 7-2 victory.

Game 4 started as a tougher test as Winnipeg was the first to strike 13 minutes into the 1st period, but Jake Neighbours answered with a clutch goal in the waning seconds of the opening period. The 2nd period started with 10 minutes of back-and-forth play before Tyler Tucker broke the tie with a 10th minute goal. Later in the period, Brayden Schenn and Justin Faulk scored goals of their own to extend the STL Lead to 4-1. A Robert Thomas goal early in the 3rd period was the end of the scoring as the Blues cruised to a 5-1 win, evening the series heading back to Winnipeg.

Game 5

The Blues are back to being big underdogs heading back on the road for Game 5. ESPN has them at +150 to win, Jets -175. Winnipeg not only are the President's Cup Winners of the 2024-2025 regular season (best record), they had the best goaltender in the NHL this season in Connor Hellebuyck. But in 2 games in STL, he allowed a whopping 11 goals and was pulled out of the game at one point (to uproarious chants from Blues fans to bring him back).

I'm far from a hockey expert, but I'm an aspiring puck-head when the Blues are in the hunt. And I've uncovered a key analytic to this series that no other hockey expert has, and it will be the key to the St. Louis Blues winning Game 5 and winning this series as a whole --- Scoring Goals.

In Games 1 and 2, the Blues scored 4 goals. In Games 3 and 4, the Blues scored 12 goals. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. As simple as it sounds, the Blues found ways to put the puck in the net at home and need to replicate that on the road. Hellebuyck is an exceptional goalie, but right now he's a Knight with a chink in his armor. We've already hit him, he's wounded. Now is the time to step on his neck and finish the job.

I've been really impressed with the Blues defense in all 4 games really -- I know Winnipeg scored 5 goals in game 1, but one of them was an empty netter and they honestly played 58 minutes of great defensive hockey in that game, with 2 real bad minutes at the end. It's the inverse of what you often hear in Basketball or Soccer: "Good defense leads to good offense." When I watch the Blues, I feel like our defense feeds off of our offense. When our forwards are flying around putting pucks on net, the defense keeps the puck out of our zone. It's like they're more motivated when the O is ripping shots at the net to keep the opposition from attacking offensively.

This isn't necessarily a MUST-win game, but it's pretty fucking close. We have all the momentum right now, are scoring at an incredible rate against an incredible goaltender, and OUR goalie Jordan Binnington is standing on his head. He's the type of player that, when's he's in the zone, I don't think there's another goalie in the NHL I'd rather have in our net. He's been great all series, and I think if we can get him a couple early goals that he can finish the job.

Game 5 begins tonight at 8:30 pm CT and will be on ESPN. The Blues are a big ML dog at +150, and the O/U is set at 5.5 (love that over). Game 6 will be on Friday and the series will return to St. Louis. As always, LGB.