St. Louis Blues vs. Vancouver Canucks – 8/19/20 NHL Pick, Odds, and Prediction
Vancouver Canucks at St. Louis Blues 8/19/20: NHL Hockey free preview, analysis, prediction, odds and pick against the spread.
2020-08-19 22:30:00 EDT
The Vancouver Canucks and the St. Louis Blues meet in game five of their best-of-seven Western Conference quarter-final series in NHL action from Rogers Place on Wednesday night.
The Vancouver Canucks will look to bounce back and try to re-take the series lead after letting St. Louis climb back from a 2-0 hole to tie the series at two wins apiece following a 3-1 St. Louis win in game four.
Ryan O’Reilly opened the scoring for the Blues with just over three minutes to go in the opening period before J. T. Miller tied the game at one just :40 into the second period. O’Reilly restored the Blues’ lead with his second goal of the game coming just over five minutes after Miller’s goal and Alex Pietrangelo pushed the lead to 3-1 for St. Louis with just over four minutes to go in the middle period. Vancouver would come hunting for a goal to get back in the game in the third period, but St. Louis slammed the door shut on any comeback attempt and held onto the 3-1 score line to secure the win and to tie the series up at two wins apiece.
Jake Allen got the win after stopping 22 of 23 shots faced in the winning effort for St. Louis in goal while Jacob Markstrom ended up with the loss for the Canucks in the crease, allowing three goals on 37 shots faced in the losing effort.
Vancouver is 5-2 in their last 7 games overall and 6-17 in their last 23 conference quarter-final games while the over is 7-1 in their last 8 Wednesday games. St. Louis is 2-5 in their last 7 games overall and 11-5 in their last 16 games as a favorite while the under is 5-2 in their last 7 conference quarter-final games. The under is 35-17-9 in the last 61 meetings between these two teams.
These two teams have battled throughout the series and after game one, we haven’t really seen either side run away here. With that said, I’m still expecting a tight, low-scoring game here, so I’ll side with the under 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.
