The 2020-2021 NHL season is finally here and the NHL has five games on tap for Wednesday night including our game featuring the St Louis Blues and the Colorado Avalanche. St Louis finished its 2020 campaign with a 42-19 record and were defeated 4-2 by the Vancouver Canucks in the Conference Round of the playoffs. Colorado ended its 2020 season with a 42-20 record and lost in seven games to the Dallas Stars in the second round of the Conference playoff.
Blues Underwhelming 2020 Playoffs
The Blues didn’t end its season the way they would have liked and falling in the first round of the playoffs to Vancouver must have rankled their feathers. St Louis will have to replace Alex Pietrangelo to free agency, traded away backup goaltender Jake Allen and Alex Steen retired, They did sign free-agent Torey Krug and Mike Hoffman won a spot on the roster after being offered a tryout with the club.
It feels SO GOOD to play hockey in this building again. #stlblues
— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) January 11, 2021
Check out all the highlights. 👇 #stlblues pic.twitter.com/WfiT2Xh4e1
St Louis has its top three scorers returning to the club; Ryan O’Reilly led the team with 61 points on a dozen goals with 49 assists and ended his season with a +/- +11. David Perron scored 25 goals with 35 helpers and a +/- +2 and Brayden Schenn lit the lamp 25 times with 33 dimes and a +/- +3. Krug should help this offense do its thing and this should be a fun team to watch.
Jordan Binnington struggled in the postseason, allowing an average of 4.72 goals per game and that was a far cry from regular season Binnington with a GAA of 2.56 per night with a save percentage of 91 percent and notched three shutouts last season.
Avalanche Eye Stanley Cup Final
Colorado made it to the second round of the playoffs but fell in seven games to the Dallas Stars. The Avalanche could have tinkered with their young and improving team but instead traded away Nikita Zadorov and Anton Lindholm for Devon Toews and Brandon Saad. This is a very good team that fell a bit short last season and intends on going further in 2021.
"One of the best players I've ever seen."@Mackinnon9 earns the #⃣2⃣ spot on our #NHLTopPlayers list. @Avalanche pic.twitter.com/bLYVwpNIzl
— NHL Network (@NHLNetwork) January 11, 2021
Nathan McKinnon had a monster 2020 season with 93 points on 35 goals with 58 assists and a +/- 13 and how he plays will be how Colorado goes this season. Cale Maker is coming off of a 50 point season with a +/- 12 and Andre Burakovsky netted 20 goals and 25 helpers with a +/- 11 last season. This offense is going to be fun to watch this year.
Phillip Grubbauer had an injury-riddled 2020 but did finish with an 18-12-4 record with a 2.63 GAA and 91 percent save percentage alongside two shutouts during the regular season with a GAA of 1.96 and 92 percent save percentage with a shutout during the playoffs.
Team Trends
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- Blues are 5-2 in their last 7 vs. Central.
- Blues are 7-3 in their last 10 road games.
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