NHL Hockey Betting: San Jose Sharks at St. Louis Blues

The Sharks and Blues are tied at two games apiece as the series shifts back to the Scottrade Center in St. Louis. The Blues dominated the Sharks for two periods in Game Four, leading 4-0 and opened a 5-1 lead early in the third. They then went into their ‘prevent defense’ and left goaltender Jake Allen to deal with a 16-5 shots on goal onslaught. Allen was up to the task and St. Louis won 6-3.

Allen will likely get the start here not only due to his solid performance but for more practical reasons. Brian Elliott has played a lot of hockey in the past few months. More significantly, he’s played in a lot of important games including a pair of Game 7’s in the previous two rounds. It would be unrealistic to think that he’s not mentally and physically fatigued at least to some degree. Allen is an extremely capable goalie who has been sitting and watching Elliots run of excellent play no doubt thinking that he’d like to get in the game. Now the Sharks might be asking that same question about Martin Jones. Jones has also put in a lot of miles including a Game 7 against Nashville and could at the very least use a night off. It might not be the worst idea to give Jonathan Bernier the nod for Game Five and reassess after that.

St. Louis isn’t out of the woods yet. They’re still getting outshot by the Sharks in every game and that won’t work. Given the way these two teams play the Blues should have the shots on goal advantage every night. They haven’t outshot the Sharks once in this series. It’s a ticket for disaster to be content with a shot total in the early twenties since hoping that a goalie capable of dominating like Jones lets a few soft goals in.

Ultimately, we’re going to do what we do in many evenly matched series. We’re going to take the plus price which puts us on San Jose. The fact that the Sharks were the best road team in the NHL this season and have won 5 of their last 7 in St. Louis makes it all the more appealing.

BET SAN JOSE SHARKS +120 OVER ST. LOUIS BLUES