The Colorado Avalanche and St. Louis Blues will face off tonight from the Enterprise Center for Game 4 of their best-of-seven series, with the Avs leading 2-1.
Below, you can look at the loan Western Conference matchup on tonight’s NHL slate and at some of our best bets on the FanDuel Sportsbook.
Colorado Avalanche (-166) vs St Louis Blues (+138) Total: 6.5 (O-114/U-106)
The Avalanche showed up for Game 3 on Saturday night, which is a good sign if you’re backing Colorado in this series. The Avs had a 2-0 series lead in the 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs against the Vegas Golden Knights before losing four-straight games, which shows how important this game could be tonight for Colorado mentally. The Blues have certainly come to play in this series, but there are now plenty of storylines to watch for in this Game 4, specifically the goalie situation for St. Louis.
Avalanche forward Nazem Kadri crashed the Blues goal in Game 3 and ultimately injured St. Louis goalie Jordan Binnington, who was later replaced by Ville Husso in net. Sunday afternoon, Binnington was ruled out for the remainder of the series with a lower-body injury, bad news for St. Louis with how well the Canadian goalie was playing. Husso went into this year’s playoffs for the Blues as the starter but was replaced by Binnington after Game 3 in Round 1 against Minnesota, and it’ll be a key in this series if he’s able to recreate some of the success he found during the regular season.
That might be a tough task against such a high-powered offense like the Avalanche, but the Blues still have the scoring depth to keep this matchup close, and what we see moving forward might just come down to Darcy Kuemper’s play in the Colorado goal, which has been exceptional. Craig Berube and the Blues made great adjustments for Game 2 in Colorado and ultimately picked up the victory. With the experience this Blues team embodies, it’s something we should expect once again in Game 4 tonight, in what should be looked at as a must-win for St Louis at home.
The Blues are presenting some really nice value tonight on the moneyline and certainly have the capability to even up this series before heading to Colorado for Game 5. Take the value you’re getting with St. Louis and look for them to have a response after an emotional Game 3 loss.
The Avalanche and Blues both boast plenty of offensive depth, but that hasn’t exactly been what we’ve seen so far in this matchup. The first three games of this series have netted 5, 5, and 7 goals scored, with tonight’s total set at 6.5. Game 3 went over in the final minute thanks to an empty-net goal from Artturi Lehkonen and while that number hitting is all that matters, the reality of this series is that there hasn’t been a ton of goals scored, which should continue tonight.
Best Bets: Blues moneyline (+138), Under 6.5 (-106)
