St. Louis Blues (30-10-8) at Colorado Avalanche (26-15-6)
NHL Hockey: Saturday, January 18, 2020 at 3:00 pm (Pepsi Center)
The Line: Colorado Avalanche -145 / St. Louis Blues +125 --- Over/Under: 6 Click Here for the Latest Odds
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The St. Louis Blues and the Colorado Avalanche meet in a Central division clash in NHL action from the Pepsi Center on Saturday afternoon.
The St. Louis Blues will look to rebound from a 4-3 overtime loss to Philadelphia in their last outing. Justin Faulk opened the scoring for the Blues with the lone goal of the opening period before Philly surged ahead to a 2-1 lead after 40 minutes of play with a pair of goals three minutes apart. The Flyers pushed out to a 3-1 cushion in the opening minute of the 3rd period before Ryan O-Reilly and Alex Steen helped St. Louis tie the game with goals 3:04 apart. Regulation time wouldn’t produce a winner, so it was off to overtime where the Flyers buried the game winner with just under a minute and a half to play. Jordan Binnington took the loss, falling to 22-7-5 on the year after allowing 4 goals on 25 shots faced in the losing effort.
The Colorado Avalanche will look to build on a 4-0 win over the San Jose Sharks in their last outing. Valeri Nichuskin opened the scoring for Colorado just :45 into the game before Cale Makar doubled the lead in the dying seconds of the opening period. Ryan Graves pushed the lead to 3-0 just before the midway point of the 2nd period and Matt Calvert added a 4th Colorado goal just 2:43 later. The Avs would lock things down from there on out, riding the four-goal lead to the finish line. Philipp Grubauer got the win to improve to 13-10-4 on the year after stopping all 27 shots faced in the winning effort for his 1st shutout of the season.
St. Louis is 4-1 in their last 5 games overall and 18-8 in their last 26 games as a road underdog while the over is 4-1 in their last 5 division games. Colorado is 2-6 in their last 8 home games and 1-4 in their last 5 games overall while the over is 7-3 in their last 10 division games. St. Louis is 23-9 in the last 32 meetings between these two teams.
Okay, I get that the Blues just had their home winning streak snapped and St. Louis isn’t as good on the road as they are at home, but the Avalanche haven’t been lighting the world on fire at home lately and the Blues are playing better hockey than Colorado right now. St. Louis has also owned the Avalanche in recent years and I see this game being no different. I think the wrong team is favored here, but I’m not complaining. I’ll take St. Louis and the plus money here.
Chris’s Pick St. Louis +125
AUTHOR: Chris Ruffolo
Follow Chris Ruffolo on Twitter @ruffthepickdawg