St. Louis Blues going for win in San Jose against Sharks -NHL Playoffs Game 3 Preview
It is a special time for St. Louis as the Blues ended the regular season as one of the top teams in the National Hockey League (NHL) and are now tied in the 2012 Western Conference playoff quarterfinals series with San Jose Sharks.
Now, as the series heads to foreign territory for St. Louis to San Jose, it will be exciting to see whether Blues can continue playing as intense and as competitive as they have been doing so up until now.
St. Louis will be a little more under pressure since they lost one of their veteran goalies, Jaroslav Halak, who went out in game-two due to a collision with Blues defenseman, Barret Jackman, but since Brian Elliott is also in form for the playoffs, the team should not have a problem.
"We're lucky because we've been a two-man rotation since Day 1 here," coach, Ken Hitchcock, said. "You don't expect something like this to happen but it does. We're lucky we're in the situation we're in. We have two good goalies, a 1 and a 1A literally. Both guys have played in pretty much every building and both guys have played well in every building. For us, we don't miss a beat."
Elliott is definitely one of the best goalies in the league and certainly has the capability to lead the St. Louis team to a victory, maybe even a shutout, which would give the club a major boost in confidence.
Blues are determined to down San Jose and get some payback for some heated competition during the regular season and past two games.
"This time of year there's only one payback, win the hockey game," Ken Hitchcock added on Sunday. "That's the only payback. There's no retribution other than play to win.”
San Jose is also planning something different. Sharks have decided to limit the amount of power play advantages they give to the opposition. With 130 minutes of penalties in game-two alone, Sharks will definitely need to cut it down by a lot.
San Jose Sharks and St. Louis Blues will be facing off for game-three of the quarterfinal series on Monday, April 16, 2012, at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California, at 10:00 PM ET.
Tags: