2022 NHL playoff preview: Avalanche vs. Blues

For two straight years, the first round has been a formality for the Colorado Avalanche, laying waste to inferior opponents. Last year, it was the maddeningly inconsistent St. Louis Blues, who had a struggling goalie. This year, it was the thin Nashville Predators, who didn’t even have their starting goalie. In both cases, the result was the same: a four-game sweep.

Now comes the real challenge: getting past the second round. This year, the task comes against a familiar opponent – the very same Blues that Colorado so easily dispatched a year ago.

By “very same,” we mean in name and jersey only. These Blues are different. They’re stronger, faster and more potent offensively, thanks to incredible forward depth. They’re not the same team that received only a 12 percent chance of beating Colorado last spring.

The only problem? These Avalanche are also different. They’re even more capable than a year ago, with stronger stars, a deeper supporting cast and an elite goalie. So, while the Blues may be better than last year’s version, their odds unfortunately haven’t changed much.

Of course, if you’re a Blues fan you’re likely reveling in that fact. All year, The Model has underestimated St. Louis at every turn and been dead wrong. It would likely be less comforting to see the Blues favored with the amount of distrust there is right now. While most Blues fans will undoubtedly agree that they come into this series as deserved underdogs, there’s likely a bit of shock to see the odds come in this low. Or maybe it’s just par for the course.

The Model is wrong about the Blues. That was hinted at in the last series write-up, and a series win only furthers that notion. As it turns out, the Blues did have the edge over the Wild, hinted at by their head-to-head matchups over the past few years. But that’s not the case here, where the Avalanche won the season series this year and swept the Blues last season.

Instead, the argument this time likely comes by way of stylistic preference. When the Avalanche were ousted from the playoffs in the past, it was via teams that played a heavier game they struggled to counter. They encounter the same issue against the very heavy Blues, who know what it takes to go the extra mile come playoff time. That’ll likely be St. Louis’ biggest advantage, and if you ascribe to that belief, the Blues are eight percentage points more likely to win.

But even with that, the Avalanche are just far more likely to win – to the point that The Model would have to be extremely wrong about the Blues to consider this series close. The reason the Avalanche are so favored has a lot more to do with them than it does the Blues. The Avs are the best team in the league and would be heavily favored against almost anyone, not just St. Louis.

Offensively, Colorado’s strengths came from shot volume and finishing – and that was without a full lineup for much of the year, with some of its best all missing stretches. In the playoffs, Colorado took that to the next level, improving its shot creation, scoring chance generation and goal-scoring without even spiking its shooting percentage. It’s no surprise a healthy Avalanche lineup with a few deadline acquisitions was so dominant in Round 1. But that also came against a weak team in Nashville, so take it with a grain of salt.

St. Louis outpaced expectations throughout the regular season, scoring at a top-five rate. The drawback of public data is that there are only so many ways to proxy for pre-shot movement without passing stats. According to Sportlogiq, the Blues were one of the best teams at moving the puck to the quality areas at five-on-five. That boosts their expected goal rate to top-10 caliber but still keeps them behind Colorado.

While the Blues took a couple more shots than usual in Round 1, their scoring chance generation slipped, as did their actual goal scoring. That’s something they’ll have to increase if they’re going to stack up against a team with as much offensive firepower as Colorado.

On the back end, the Blues took a step back in their opening series in shot and scoring chance limitation. To their credit, it came against Minnesota, which wasn’t a pushover, even when it couldn’t get all its best offensive threats clicking. Goaltending comes into play here, and St. Louis had support in net, going into this series with two capable options.

Colorado, after being a top team in suppressing quality shots and stopping them, raised the bar in the playoffs again when matching up against the offensively flawed Predators. The test for the Avalanche will be how they maintain that against a deeper opponent that can score in all situations.

Both teams had a bonafide edge in special teams in Round 1, but now things are a bit tighter. Colorado was slightly better below the surface on the power play in the regular season, but the Blues had the results to show for it. And St. Louis only upped its production in…