Vancouver Canucks vs. St. Louis Blues – 8/21/20 NHL Pick, Odds, and Prediction

The St. Louis Blues and the Vancouver Canucks meet in game six of their best-of-seven Western Conference quarter-final matchup in NHL action from Rogers Place on Friday night.

The St. Louis Blues will try to force a game seven after falling behind in the series by a count of 3-2 after a 4-3 Vancouver win in game five last time out.

Tyler Motte opened the scoring for the Canucks short-handed with just under seven minutes to go in the opening frame, but Brayden Schenn would tie the game at one for the Blues just 2:26 later and Ryan O’Reilly would give St. Louis a 2-1 lead with just :29 to go in the first. Zach Sanford pushed St. Louis’ lead to 3-1 less than six minutes into the second on the power play but J.T. Miller would pull one back with just over eight minutes to go in the second for the Canucks and Jake Virtanen would tie the game at three for Vancouver with just under four minutes to go in the middle period. Motte would restore Vancouver’s lead just 2:09 after that and despite St. Louis holding a 9-6 edge in shots on goal in the 3rd period, St. Louis wouldn’t find a tying goal and fell to the Canucks, pushing St. Louis to the brink of elimination as well as their hopes of repeating as Stanley Cup champions.

Jacob Markstrom got the win in goal for Vancouver after stopping 36 of 39 shots faced in the winning effort while Jake Allen took the loss in net for St. Louis after giving up four goals on 30 shots in defeat.

St. Louis is 2-6 in their last 8 games overall and 2-5 in their last 7 playoff games as a favorite while the over is 4-0-1 in their last 5 Friday games. Vancouver is 6-2 in their last 8 games as an underdog and 4-1 in their last 5 games following a win while the over is 5-2 in their last 7 games against a team with a winning record. The underdog is 6-2 in the last 8 meetings between these two teams and the under is 23-10-5 in the last 38 meetings between the two as well.

The plus money with Vancouver is tempting as they’ve been the better team here and it’s earned them a 3-2 series lead. The problem is that the Blues are a veteran group that’s faced adversity before and are more than capable of buckling down and forcing a game seven. I also expect Jordan Binnington to get called back into action for the Blues here and if he gets the start, he knows the opportunity that he has to regain his starting job and a Binnington that’s focused, driven and on top of his game is a scary thought if I’m the other team. Give me St. Louis here to force the only game seven of the quarter-final round here.