Kings Look For Split in St. Louis Thursday Night<\/strong><\/p>\nLA hopes to bounce back on Thursday night and to return home even in the quarter-final series.<\/p>\n
The Los Angeles Kings were lucky to get to overtime on Tuesday night. Justin Williams scored LA\u2019s only goal of the game with just 31.6 seconds left. Then the Kings were unable to take advantage of a four minute power play in overtime and surrendered the shorthanded goal that sealed their own fate.<\/p>\n
The Kings looked as though they were not prepared for the ramped up intensity of the playoffs \u2013 something that will change in Game 2. This team isn\u2019t used to getting pushed around and that is what happened in Game 1.<\/p>\n
Jonathan Quick was predictably solid in Game 1 \u2013 40 saves with one intensely critical puck-handling gaffe that cost them the game. There aren\u2019t any worries defensively for the Kings but they know that 29 shots for and 0-for-4 on the power play won\u2019t get it done on Thursday night either.<\/p>\n
It shouldn\u2019t come as much of a surprise that the Blues beat the Kings in Game 1. After all they won 12 of its last 15 to earn the No. 4 seed in the Western Conference and home-ice advantage. It was the way they won \u2013 dominating the Kings in absolutely every facet of the game that caught many by surprise. [ad-4437448]<\/p>\n
The Blues threw 42 shots at Jonathan Quick, they outhit the Kings 41-38 and their special teams dominated scoring a power play goal and a shorthanded marker. The team likely won\u2019t score a lot in this game but they likely won\u2019t have to the rest of the way. Brian Elliott has a 1.28 GAA and .948 save percentage in his last 13 games and he allowed one goal or fewer in 11 of his last 14 starts.<\/p>\n
Elliot looks a lot like his counterpart Jonathan Quick did at this time last year \u2013 he could be the difference the rest of the way!<\/p>\n
Betting Prediction<\/h3>\n
A few trends to consider:
\n\u2022 LA are 6-2 in their last 8 vs. Central.
\n\u2022 Under is 14-3-2 in STL last 19 home games.
\n\u2022 STL are 13-3 in their last 16 overall.
\n\u2022 Under is 17-6-3 in STL last 26 overall.
\n\u2022 LA are 8-1 in the last 9 meetings.
\n\u2022 Under is 9-4-2 in the last 15 meetings.<\/p>\n
The Kings were caught off guard on Tuesday night. Coach Darryl Sutter called out a few of his younger players especially about how they responded to the intensity of Game 1. They should be better Thursday. But the question is whether or not they can solve Brian Elliot \u2013 nobody has the last month! I look at the Kings 8-12-4 regular season road record; I look at the emotion displayed in Game 1 and come up with my pick.<\/p>\n
Pick:<\/strong> St. Louis Blues -121<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kings vs Blues NHL Spread\/Handicapping The Los Angeles Kings find themselves in an unfamiliar position \u2013 trailing in a series! That\u2019s right \u2013 LA won the Cup last year while going 16-4 and not trailing at any point along the way. But there is a reason that the Blues are up 1-0 \u2013 they outhit, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":33953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[53103,1547,58959,2886,2276,1956,54723,58673,54724,58994,26118,58995,3801,895,12777,11729,27674],"class_list":["post-61967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nhl","tag-53103","tag-betting-predictions","tag-free-nhl-playoffs-picks","tag-game-2","tag-hockey-betting","tag-hockey-odds","tag-kings-blues-odds","tag-kings-blues-picks","tag-kings-vs-blues","tag-los-angeles-kings-vs-st-louis-blues","tag-los-angeles-vs-st-louis","tag-los-angeles-vs-st-louis-free-pick","tag-nhl-free-predictions","tag-nhl-picks","tag-nhl-playoff-odds","tag-round-1","tag-stanley-cup-playoffs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61967"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62139,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61967\/revisions\/62139"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}