Ok, so they missed the first chance at closing out the Blues on Friday, but the Predators still have a 3-2 series lead and have all the control of the series.
Let’s see handshakes tonight.
St. Louis Blues
The Blues went with Dimitrij Jaskin instead of the injured Alex Steen on Friday and it worked. Jaskin scored the first of two Blues’ goals and looked pretty good out there.
Yeo on putting Jaskin in for Steen: “I don’t know that we thought that he would be as good as he was tonight because he was impressive.”
— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) May 6, 2017
Kind of odd praise there from Yeo, but ok.
Apparently Steen traveled with the team to Nashville and could potentially play tonight. He has three points in four games in the series and was the Blues third leading scorer in the regular season, so this would be the right move. Steen is a tough cookie at 6’0” and 210 pounds and a former 30-goal-scorer. He needs to be in the lineup for the Blues if he’s healthy.
Does Mike Yeo consider playing Jaskin elsewhere in the lineup, given his production on Friday? Probably so. Unless of course he “thinks he won’t be good” or whatever.
Mike Yeo is a weird dude.
Outside of possibly Steen entering the lineup again, I would imagine the Blues will look very similar to what we saw in Game Five. No need to change it if it worked, I guess.
Oh happy day.
Nashville Predators
Bottom line: win the game.
So how do you do that? The same way you won the first three.
Beat them at the physical game. This means fighting on the boards for every puck, hitting people, and not getting pushed off the puck when you have it. Every player will have to do all of these things.
Think faster. There was too much hesitation on Friday night. This was especially true in the defensive zone, where players were too worried about the breakout than in getting the puck out of the zone. They just need to make quicker decisions. Even after winning seven games this postseason, mostly with quickness and speed, you can always be a little bit faster.
React. Act like the game on Friday night pissed you off. Act like missing an opportunity to advance in the playoffs really sat with you over the last day and a half. This doesn’t mean doing stupid things like slashing someone or getting in a fight, it just means reacting to a bad performance with a good performance. We saw this in Game Three, so let’s see it again.
Also, JOFA: you’re due.
Reasons to Watch
- I want to see Mike Fisher play the way he did on Friday. He was everywhere. Show that leadership again, but this time make it count.
- Arvy is so freaking close to scoring. Everyone can feel it. Everyone wants it. You’ll want to be there when it happens.
- Potentially the biggest win in Preds history. Tune in. /
The Important Details
2:00 PM puck drop in Nashville. GO TO BRIDGESTONE IF YOU CAN, but if you can’t, you can watch it on NBC and hear it on 102.5 The Game.