...
the reason you play hard during the regular season is to gain home-ice edge during the playoffs...the bluenote has it...that's the good news...the bad news? in this game 7 spot, against this opponent, in what constitures a rather historic setting, it's totally meaningless...
I draw a parallel between the blues and the sharks, both teams with a 3-1 series lead heading into game 5, and both teams essentially facing a pivotal moment in NEEDING TO WIN THAT GAME...
we've got immense psychological issues in play here: two clubs burdened by the weight of post-season failure...we simply cannot under-estimate the ever-present creeping scourge of self-doubt rooted in failure after failure after failure...it was there for the sharks, who forged a different outcome... for the bluenote it's three straight 1st-round bounces and counting...
the sharks withstood the push and won, eliminating the kings and the albatross...st. Louis?...double OT loss at home in game 5, a no-doubt-about-it absolute stone-crusher, and then in game 6, on the highway no less, a 3-1 early lead totally vaporized against a club which is trying to write a different kind of history...
hitch (who with a bit less hair is a lock to play Sidney greenstreet's fat-man caspar gutman if they ever do a remake of the maltese falcon) is no dummy...he understands these things...he knows what he's up against, and that means he needs Elliott to pitch a shutout tonight...one GA is one too many...two and they're toast...believe me, I actually feel badlly for the bluenote...
but they're toast...
there is zero nada absolutely no home-ice edge working...oh, you'll get the crowd into it early, and the bluenote if they can respond and feed off that and get the first goal (an absolute freakin necessity IMO) can turn it into an advantage and maybe run with that
but...
you've got a 3-time-champion opponent on your hands...been there, done that...coaching advantage? nil...quenneville has a scowl that would scare off an aneurysm....he's got the smarts to play the matchup game...plus he's got toews, kane, keith, and a keeper just as capable as Elliott and with the Cup pedigree and all that lord Stanley-issue bling to boot...
for me it all goes back to that game 5 outcome...THAT was the game the bluenote had to have...they didn't get it, and then even worse they let game 6 slip into the abyss...and the earth opened and the creeping doubts were unleashed...
I hate to put it into such simple terms...
but for me it's open-and-shut: a case of simple inevitability...
PICK: CHICAGO ML (-105)...
break a leg every1 whichever path you choose letz do it to the shyz b4 they do it 2 us