Toronto Maple Leafs: Round 1 Western Conference NHL Playoff Predictions
By Luke Ryan
Minnesota Wild vs St. Louis Blues
Traditionally, these two teams would look to play a series that is the exact opposite of the end-to-end offense you expect from the Toronto Maple Leafs clash with Tampa.
However this season, this may very well prove the most exciting series in the West. The Blues and Wild were the third and fourth highest goal scoring sides in the league this year.
In fact, only the Toronto Maple Leafs and Florida Panthers offered up more in the Goals For column.
Kirill Kaprizov has arrived in Minnesota and completely flipped the script. Perpetually the also-ran or the side just good enough to make playoffs but not go anywhere, suddenly the Wild have direction.
Their young Russian is heading this change. He’s the franchise’s first ever 100-point scorer and not only that it’s 108 points; two more than the Toronto Maple Leafs leading guy. Hardly something to sniff at.
On the other side of the fence, you have a St. Louis Blues side that still features a lot of its Stanley Cup winning core group. They also feature a bit more depth through their top-nine which is always key in the postseason.
Perhaps the big surprise is the goaltending in this match-up.
Looking at that Stanley Cup winning side, it was Jordan Binnington who carried the Blues through. He has found himself usurped by Ville Husso as the number one in St. Louis.
Compare this to the Wild net and it’s actually anyone’s guess who starts in the first round.
Marc-Andre Fleury was a trade target of the Toronto Maple Leafs but now finds himself the partner of Cam Talbot which presents a reasonably formidable duo.
This is one of the series you could reasonably safely expect to go to a full seven game series.
Predicting that the Blues edge this series 4-3 purely on the basis of having a little more elimination game experience at this point.