San Jose Sharks face tough test against St. Louis Blues - NHL Playoff Preview
The San Jose Sharks will face the St. Louis Blues on Thursday, April 12, 2012 in the first playoff game at the Scottrade Center.
The Sharks had just about managed to keep their playoff dreams alive after recovering in time from their slump to secure the seventh spot in the Western Conference.
They will now face the St. Louis Blues in the Conference quarterfinals and have an uphill task to move forward in the playoffs as they face a Blues side that has been in great form throughout the regular season at the Scottrade Center.
San Jose ended the regular season with a fine finish and seems to have regained their early season form. They now have to overcome their poor form against the Blues if they wish to progress further to the conference semi-finals.
St. Louis on the other hand have performed brilliantly in the 2011-12 regular season and were second in the Western Conference just two points behind the Vancouver Canucks who won the conference.
The Blues will be confident with their home ice advantage and complete dominance of the Sharks in the regular season.
Sharks
San Jose has a tough task ahead of them.
They will play four of the seven games of the conference quarterfinals at the Scottrade Center where the Blues have an impressive record.
The Sharks though enter the playoffs in a rich vein of form and ended the regular season with four straight victories as they secured seventh in the Western Conference.
They will need to perform much better if they wish to beat the Blues at home ice. The Sharks lost all four of their regular season games to the Blues both at home and on the road and were shutout in two of those games.
This time the Sharks have a clean slate to start with and will be ready to end their poor run of form against St. Louis.
Dan Boyle talking to the San Jose Mercury News said.
"The expectations for us are still there. People are probably a little more unsure of us than they've ever been. But that doesn't really matter as far as this locker room goes. The expectations are still the same, whether we finished eighth, seventh or first."
Blues
St. Louis will be the heavy favourites for the seven-game series.
With home ice advantage and a 4-0 record this year against San Jose, the Blues could not have asked for a much better fixture heading into the playoffs.
The Blues are missing regular goaltender Brian Elliot on Thursday with Jaroslav Halak taking up the position in front of the net.
However, St. Louis will be highly confident and boasting the best defence in the league will make things increasingly difficult for the Sharks.
Coach Ken Hitchcock in an interview praised his team’s defence.
"To me, [the goalies] have been the story of our hockey club. When your leading scorer hasn't gotten to 60 points yet and you're in first in the division, that's quite an accomplishment. We've done it with checking, we've done it with defence and more importantly,
we've done it with goaltending."
Predictions
It is hard to see any other winner in this game except for the Blues.
Sum of goals will be less than six.
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