In what will surely be 2 outstanding matchups, the Honda West division will provide us with a ton of great hockey to watch for the next week or so. Two of the four teams have been to the Stanley Cup recently and the Avalanche are perennial Cup contenders, while the Minnesota Wild could potentially be a dark horse cup candidate if they can get out of the West.
(1) Colorado Avalanche vs (4) St.Louis Blues
The Colorado Avalanche have been one of most fun teams to watch all year and are loaded with talent offensively and defensively with the likes of Nathan Mackinnon, Mikko Rantanen, Gabe Landeskog and Cale Makar, to name a few. They may be driving this train but they aren’t alone as depth players like Nazem Kadri, Jonas Donskoi, Andre Burakovsky, Sam Girard, and Devon Toews have helped pull the load all season long and have made the Avs extremely tough to take 2 points from.
Lead by Mikko Rantanen in goals with 30 and points with 66, the President’s Trophy winning Avalanche have no shortage of offensive talent as they had 6 players score 15+ goals on the season.
Defenseman Cale Makar had another stellar year as he was able to put up 44 points with 36 coming via assist, while Sam Girard was able to pile up numbers of his own with 27 assists and tacking on 5 goals for a total of 32 points on the year. Traded for during the off-season, Devon Toews has helped solidify the Avs on the back end.
There are a few Avalanche players who tend to get lost in all of the talk about Nathan Mackinnon and Cale Makar but perhaps none more so than Phillipp Grubauer. Grubauer finished the season with a 1.95 GAA and a .922 sv%. Yes, you read that right. 1.95 GAA. If Grubauer can sustain this run of great play the Avalanche could be a lock to make the Cup Finals.
St. Louis on the other hand struggled for most of the season but finished the year on an 8-1-3 run that began with a win over the Colorado Avalanche on April 24th. Lead in points by David Perron and in goals by captain Ryan O’Reilly, the Blues are battle tested and have gone into the playoffs as underdogs in the past. With O’Reilly guaranteeing a victory ahead of the start of the series, we could be in for some big boy playoff hockey.
Colorado won the season series 5-3.
HW Staff Predictions
Jim: 4-2 Avalanche
Jack: 4-1 Avalanche
Steve: 4-2 Avalanche
Kyle: 4-2 Avalanche
Johnny: 4-0 Avalanche
Josh: Avalanche
Adam: Avalanche
(2) Vegas Golden Knights vs (3) Minnesota Wild
Buckle up because the next couple of nights are going to be wild!…See what I did there?
This is one of the series I’m most excited to watch and mostly because I want to see how Vegas decides they want to shut down Kirill Kaprizov. Can they? Probably. Vegas has arguably the best goalie tandem in the NHL and head coach Peter Deboer is one of the best in the league in my opinion. He’ll have his bunch ready as they play a structured game and have a plethora of offensive weapons to boot.
Lead by forwards Mark Stone, Max Pacioretty, and Jonathan Marchessault, VGK also has backend talent with he likes of Shea Theodore, Alec Martinez, who had a substantially better year than big off-season free agent acquisition, Alex Pietrangelo. The Golden Knights finished 1st in the NHL in least goals against, giving up just 124 in their 56 games.
If Minnesota is to win they’ll have to play out of their minds each and every game. Lead by Kaprizov with 27 tallies, the Wild had 8 players score 10 goals or more during the season and will need contributions up and down the lineup if they’re to take down the juggernaut that is Las Vegas.
Minnesota shockingly won 5 of 8 matchups during the regular season.
HW Staff Predictions
Jim: 4-2 Golden Knights
Jack: 4-2 Golden Knights
Steve: 4-3 Golden Knights
Kyle: 4-0 Golden Knights
Johnny: 4-1 Golden Knights
Josh: 4-2 Golden Knights
Adam: 4-1 Golden Knights
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Follow our staff on Twitter: @hwradio18, @jimikehw, @jack_hwradio, @warnerkyle29, @grittyadam, @dapriceisbright, @flyersjohnny, @fhwradio
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