Vancouver Canucks vs. St. Louis Blues – 8/16/20 NHL Pick, Odds, and Prediction

The Vancouver Canucks and the St. Louis Blues meet in game three of their Western Conference quarter-final series from Rogers Place on Sunday night.

The St. Louis Blues will try to get on the board after falling down 2-0 in the series after a 4-3 overtime loss to the Canucks in game two last time out. Bo Horvat opened the scoring for the Canucks short-handed just 7:23 into the game and that lead would hold through the first intermission before Tanner Pearson doubled the Canucks lead on the power play with seven minutes to go in the second period but David Perron would get St. Louis on the board with a power play tally of his own with just over a minute to go in the middle period. Elias Pettersson restored Vancouver’s two-goal lead with a power play goal 5:36 into the 3rd, but Sammy Blais would pull St. Louis back to 3-2 at the nine-minute mark of the 3rd and Jaden Schwartz would tie the game at three with less than six seconds to go in regulation, salvaging the game and forcing overtime for the Blues. The comeback attempt would fall short though as Horvat would secure the win for Vancouver less than six minutes into overtime and pushing the Blues to a 2-0 hole in the series.

Jacob Markstrom got the win in goal for Vancouver after stopping 34 of 37 shots faced while Jordan Binnington fell to 0-4 in postseason play with the loss for St. Louis, allowing 4 goals on 25 shots in defeat.

St. Louis is 0-5 in their last 5 games overall and 0-4 in their last 4 playoff games as a favorite while the under is 6-0 in their last 6 Sunday games. Vancouver is 5-0 in their last 5 games overall and 4-0 in their last 4 games against a team with a winning record while the over is 4-1 in their last 5 playoff games as an underdog. The underdog is 5-0 in the last 5 meetings between these two teams and the under is 21-9-5 in the last 35 meetings between these two teams.

I’m not sure if the Blues make a switch from Binnington in goal to Jake Allen here, but one thing is for sure so far in this series that that’s lots of goals. So far, the first two games of the series have each seen seven goals and I think we see the same here. The Canucks are playing with confidence right now and I expect the Blues to come out with some purpose in their own right to avoid going into a 3-0 series hole. I’ll take the over as my free pick for this game but my stronger play is on the side and I have that available as a premium pick that you can find here.