Goaltending to be the X-Factor for St. Louis Blues in Playoffs -NHL Special
The last time the city of St. Louis saw their National Hockey League (NHL) franchise make an entry into the playoffs was back in 2009 after a healthy played regular season, but now, it is a whole different story as the Blues are going in extremely strong,
dedicated and well prepared.
As surprising as it might be right now for the hockey pundits, believe it or not, St. Louis is going into the postseason as the number-one ranked team, not only in the Western Conference, but throughout the major league as well.
With 106 points, St. Louis is one ahead of Eastern Conference leaders New York Rangers, were the first to clinch a playoff spot in the NHL and lead over former Western champions, Vancouver Canucks, by three points.
Making the playoffs is the least of St. Louis’ concerns at the moment, since now, it is all about holding on to that top spot in the league if not the Western Conference, which is definitely a major accomplishment for them.
"Our first motivation is to be playing well," veteran St. Louis player, Jamie Langenbrunner, said. "We feel if we do that, we'll end up in the top spot.”Obviously Vancouver's right there on our heels, Detroit and these guys (Nashville) are nipping too, but
we can control it and we just want to keep playing good hockey and keep getting better. Hopefully we'll continue to get healthy and the lineup will get better and better and we'll keep moving forward"
Analysing what has made St. Louis become such a better team is not hard at all. Goaltending is the answer. A strong goaltending line-up has allowed the Blues to improve significantly as they have always had great shooters and top-notch defenseman. Signing
on Brian Elliott, a veteran goalie who has had one of his best seasons by far was one of the best decisions Blues could have made, something which they are profiting on tremendously now.
Elliott, a goalie who was finding it hard to grab a job opportunity around the league during the offseason, is now ranked as one of the best in the entire hockey world. Shattering shutout records with numerous breakdowns of opposing teams, Elliott is having
the time of his life and giving St. Louis something to be thankful for.
The 26-year-old was left abandoned by Colorado Avalanche at the end of the 2010-2011 regular season after being traded by Ottawa Senators, but now with St. Louis, Elliott played in 36 games this time around. Impressively, he won 23 of those and lost only
nine of those starts with three going into overtimes and nine into shootouts.
He has a save percentage of .943, better than any other full season he has played up until now and a remarkable 1.48 goals against average.
Jaroslav Halak is the evergreen goalie for St. Louis, who has been with them for two seasons now and a backbone goaltender, keeping the team alive in situations even Elliott might have hiccups.
The veteran Bratislava, Slovakia, boasts a 44 games played record this season with 25 wins and 11 losses so far and a .927 save percentage and 1.92 goals against average.
Both goalies are playing in their primetimes and since Halak and Elliott are both 26-years-old, they certainly do have a long and successful career ahead of them, making both the x-factors in St. Louis’ run for the cup this time.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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