St Louis and Minnesota have only met twice during the regular season, winning and losing one game each, though St Louis outscored Minnesota 8-5. However, as the teams enter the post-season, Minnesota have been mediocre going 6-4-0 in their last ten games while St Louis has been one of the hottest teams going 8-1-1 and securing 5th place in the Western Conference.
After missing out on the playoffs last year, St Louis have a lot to prove and hope that the most active GM in trading, only 3 players remain from the 20 man roster that began the season, has created a cup contender. The Blues are 20-6-4 in their last 30 games, but Minnesota hasn't slacked off its pace going 18-9-3 in its last 30 games.
The Offense: Winners - St Louis
Minnesota heavily depends upon the play of Rod Brind'Amour for the majority of their offense, leading the Wild with 87 points, 21 points ahead of his closest teammate. As a result, usual playoff hero Brind'Amour will have to play even more above his head in order for Minnesota to have a chance of success.
St Louis on the other hand will rely on its depth to bring offense as their second line of Mike Fisher, Paul Kariya and Brian Rolston have outplayed the first line of Datsyuk, Staal and Kunitz down the stretch.
The Defence: Winners - Minnesota
St Louis will need to hit Minnesota's blueline hard if they want any success, as Minnesota's mobile defense top four of Kubina, Redden, Enstrom and Hamhuis will be able to match the speed of the forwards of the Blues. Both Kubina and Redden have had productive seasons with the Wild and will need to continue their production to get out of their zones. The Wild have the advantage of having the better puckmoving defensemen although there is a concern that they've sacrificed too much defensively aware defensemen for offense.
St Louis will heavily rely on their top four defensemen of Zubov, Poti, Gill and Phillips in order for them to go deep in the playoffs while powerplay specialist Joseph Corvo will have to pick up his play to become a factor during the series.
The Goaltending: Winners - St Louis
Though Evgeni Nabokov failed to get playoff action last season, his regular season play outperformed his opposing number in Nicolai Khabibulin and will have to continue to do so to give the Blues the win in the series. The advantage of a star goalie in Nabokov over Khabibulin could be enough to give the Blues the series win.
Congrats to GM Evans. We just did not have enough firepower to match the strong Blues club. They dominated us in every facet of the game and deserved to win the series.
We had a very strong regular season and are very proud of the way the team played in our first season. It is tough being an expansion team, competing and still having assets to look to the future. I believe we were able to accomplish all of those things in our first year. We have a number of good draft picks to try to stock our lack of prospects and will have to be actively looking to make some deals and to aquire some players in FA in order to fill in gaps for players not returning.
Thanks to the DHHL GM's/commishes for making our first year a great one, and look forward to improving this squad in season 2.
Good luck to the rest of the teams in the mix!!!! Except for Gareth who can burn in hell for the sweep...
Ssshh... I don't want anyone to know that I made a deal with the devil to win a brhl2 championship :)
I wouldn't have minded if I had an extra home game, but i'll take the sweep, sorry for rubbing it in with that ridiculously sized picture of a broom...
