How St. Louis Blues plan on fighting back against Los Angeles Kings –NHL Playoffs Special
St. Louis just plain lacks luck when it comes to the postseason and not having reached the Stanley Cup Finals in over 40 years is testimony to that fact. Blues are currently on the verge of being eliminated in the 2012 National Hockey League (NHL) Western
Conference Playoff Semi-Finals against Los Angeles Kings, but having a plan ready to go for a last chance at rebounding.
Blues head coach, Ken Hitchcock, definitely a major reason why St. Louis is where it is now in the postseason and he is motivated to keep taking the team to new levels as they continued to face disappointment after disappointment the previous few years back.
From a neutral perspective, most people would think that there is no way that St. Louis will be able to come back and force a Game 7 competition against Kings who are up 3-0 and play Game 4 at home in the STAPLES Center, but those who know hockey will obviously
think otherwise.
At the moment, Blues are slacking in a lot of departments from their offensive scoring, to the power play killing and Brian Elliott just choking now. Elliott, who was the top goalie at the end of the 2011-2012 NHL regular season, has given up 12 goals in
the three games played so far and he will definitely need to rethink his playing strategy come Game 4 as Jaroslav Halak has been officially ruled out for the entire series.
Here are some aspects of the Blues game that they will have to change in order to not only win Game 4 but fight till the last moment in this series against Los Angeles Kings.
Offensive Attacking
St. Louis Blues might not be the best offensive based team in the league but they definitely have some serious firepower. Looking at David Backes, Andy McDonald, Alex Steen, T.J. Oshie, David Perron and Patrik Begrlund, it might not be a lot compared to
Los Angeles’ All-Star studded line-up of Dustin Brown, Mike Richards, Justin Williams, Jeff Carter and Anze Kopitar, but it will have to do.
These players can score some goals and they will have to tune it up a whole lot in the upcoming games as St. Louis has been limited to just five goals this series on Jonathan Quick.
Brian Elliott needs to improve
As difficult as it might sound, Brian Elliott just needs to get himself together and follow in the path of Jonathan Quick but that just cannot happen solely from his side. The Blus’ defensive unit needs to harden their stance in front of Elliott and use
their bodies to deflect the shots otherwise Elliott’s 3.75 goals-against average and .845 save percentage will not be getting any better.
Conclusion
Teams become known as legendary when they attempt to actually do something that matches the definition of the word. St. Louis will have to try to become the fourth team in NHL history to have rebound and won a series being down 3-0. Philadelphia Flyers did
it against Boston Bruins back in 2010 during the semi-finals as well, proving that it is not impossible.
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