The good news is the St. Louis Blues are now the highest seed left in the Western Conference playoffs. The bad news is they have to face the other great defensive team in the West. Thanks to a last-period surge in Game 5 for the Los Angeles Kings, they defeated the Vancouver Canucks four games to one.
The Canucks are gone. There's no more superstar power from Henrik Sedin.
But there is the matter of the Kings' defense. The Kings were right there with St. Louis in terms of the best defense in the NHL. St. Louis gave up an NHL-best 155 goals. The Kings were second with 170. Brian Elliott was the best goaltender in the league with a 1.56 goals against average. Jonathan Quick was second in the regular season with a 1.95 GAA.
St. Louis only allowed 2,190 shots on goal, best in the NHL. The Kings were fifth-best with 2,248 shots on goal given up to opponents. Hockey purists would love a contest like this. The Kings and Blues will hopefully play a gritty series with plenty of tough hockey. Both offenses will have to play perfectly in order to win.
The regular season series also denotes how the Blues and Kings match up. Los Angeles won three out of four games. Two of the four games were 1-0 scores. One of those was scoreless after 65 minutes of hockey. The lone game that wasn't decided by one goal was a 5-0 shutout Oct. 18. Davis Payne was the head coach at that point.
Despite fans that say they love high-scoring games, I am looking forward to this series. I'd say playing the Kings is the lesser of two evils. The Canucks won the President's Trophy for a reason. The Kings finished 14 points behind St. Louis, a full seven wins lower. I'd rather have a close, defensive series rather than an explosive team that can score at will.
Hitchcock is a good coach who's been in this position before. If anyone can find a way through the Kings' defense, Hitchcock can.
I look for the Blues to win in a hard-fought six games. The Blues have simply played too hard and have come this far to give up now. There will probably be a few overtime games. If the last meeting of the season is any indication, the Western Conference semifinals will come down to which team makes a mistake first.
William Browning was born in St. Louis and has been a lifelong Blues fan.
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