The St. Louis Blues might've gotten the best of the San Jose Sharks to start this best-of-seven series on Sunday night, but there's a long way to go in order to reach the Stanley Cup Finals. We suspect Game 2 on Tuesday will be every bit as close as Game 1 was.
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ODDS ANALYSIS
The Blues were -127 favorites in Game 1, and we suspect they'll be lined right around that for Game 2. The margin was incredibly thin in Game 1 of this series between these two teams, and the only thing we expect to see is a total which drops by about five cents or so.
The number to beat will remain at a flat 5 throughout this series almost certainly.
GOALIE REPORT
Martin Jones hasn't made a ton of mistakes in these playoffs, but he's got one shot he wishes he had back. Jori Lehtera's unassisted goal in the second period glanced off of his shoulder and into the back of the net and was probably the softest goal he surrendered of these playoffs. Unfortunately, it happened to be the that goal stood up for the last 30+ minutes of the game.
To his credit, Jones stopped 21-of-23 shots in Game 1, but he was simply bested by Brian Elliott.
Elliott had some scary moments as well with the Sharks hitting a few pipes behind him, but the stat sheet reads 31 saves on 32 shots, and that percentage will win him a heck of a lot of games.
LIVE BETTING
We're going to talk about the Sharks' power play throughout this series for sure, and we'll have a chance to do so after St. Louis went a perfect 3-for-3 on the kill and allowed a total of just four shots for the game when a man down.
Alexander Steen and Paul Stastny were both fantastic defensively throughout Game 1, and it really showed with the way the Sharks struggled for well over half the game trying to get pucks near Elliott.
San Jose had more offensive zone time and won the territorial facet of the game, and that will translate to victories more often than not, but live bettors have to like how St. Louis responded to being on the back foot for much of the night.
QUICK PICK
Still, we'd bet if the Sharks are that forward-thinking in Game 2, they're going to earn themselves a split in these first two games to steal home ice advantage.
Joe Pavelski had chance after chance that he just didn't bury in Game 1, and there's no way he's going to misfire like that again on Tuesday night.
What was lost in the fact that Game 1 win was the fact that the Blues really didn't generate much offense all night. They had just 23 shots on goal, and only 12 of those came from the second period on. Vladimir Tarasenko hardly had his name called all night, as he only had two shots on goal and didn't have any truly memorable moments.
If Tarasenko and his mates aren't going to get more towards Jones in this series, the Sharks are very much so still in it.
NHL Odds: Sharks 2, Blues 1
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