So much for that super tandem of Brian Elliot and Jaroslav Halak.
It hasn’t seemed to work out for the St. Louis Blues so far in Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs. The team is hoping their goaltenders fare better on the road as the Blues face the Los Angeles Kings in Game Three Thursday night.
With Halak out for the rest of the series with an ankle injury, Elliot has been torched for eight goals in the first two games and St. Louis, heavy favorites heading into the series, now look up at a 2-0 hole against the Kings.
Captain David Backes, for one, is glad to be on the road.
”It’s good to get away from home and all the people that told us how good we were all year,” Backes told the Associated Press. ”We’ve had a little trouble dealing with success, with all the talk about Presidents’ trophies and Jennings trophies … and now we’re stumbling on our toes.”
Los Angeles has been so good, in fact, Bovada’s NHL Stanley Cup Futures now lists them as favorites to win the championship. It raced to an enormous 4-0 lead in the first period Tuesday night, the best start to a postseason game in almost 20 years. The Kings haven’t scored a power play goal yet, but has blanked St. Louis, too, to balance things out. They’ve scored four shorthanded goals in seven playoff games so far, none better than Anze Kopitar’s in the first period of Game 2.
“It helps when you have pairs that (kill penalties) together,” said captain Dustin Brown on Covers. “Me and (Kopitar) have PK’d together for four, five years.”
Brown himself has four shorthanded goals, most in the playoffs by any NHL player since 2008.
Meanwhile, St. Louis isn’t playing with nearly the intensity it showed during an impressive win over the San Jose Sharks.
”We’ve had times in the season where we’ve all bought in, and we’ve had times when we’re half in, half out,” Backes told the AP. ”That’s where we are right now. … Enough is enough, and we’ve got to determine as a group if we’re going to attack this thing, or if we’re going to tuck tail and run.”
The Kings narrowly squeaked into the playoffs as the eighth seed, keeping the intensity up basically all season. The Blues were the first team to secure a playoff spot and essentially cruised through the rest of the regular season. That’s the difference, according to St. Louis head coach Ken Hitchcock.
”The difference is the resolve in the opponent,” Hitchcock said. ”L.A. has had to be dug in for a long time. Their commitment is 100, and ours is maybe 85 right now.”
Another reason for the Blues to be happy on the road tonight? Recent history. Los Angeles has lost six of its last seven home games while being 5-0 on the road.
”We just haven’t done it this year,” head coach Darryl Sutter said. ”That’s one of things we talked about when I came here was never being able to be at your own home rink. It’s just hard to do, because of the basketball schedule. It’s an opportunity for us to do that.”
Still, the Kings are favored by 1 1/2 goals, according to Bovada, with a -120 moneyline.