St. Louis Blues Look to Set Tone in Game 1 Against San Jose Sharks

As they participate in their first Western Conference Finals since 2000-01, the St. Louis Blues will look to get ahead early against the San Jose Sharks.

Sunday night will be a big night in St. Louis, as the Blues will host their first Western Conference Finals game at Scottrade Center since May 18, 2001. After fighting through two tightly-contested seven-game series against two divisional rivals, the Chicago Blackhawks and Dallas Stars, the Blues will face an opponent outside the Central Division for the first time this postseason as they go up against the San Jose Sharks.

The Blues struggled to contain San Jose this season, as they lost two of three games against them and were outscored 9-5. With that said, the most recent meeting between the teams did provide reason for optimism on the Blues’ part, as the Blues defeated the Sharks 1-0 on March 22 at SAP Center. Though he faced 37 shots, compared to just 24 that the Blues were able to get on Sharks goalie Martin Jones, Brian Elliott was able to step up and record a shutout, and a Robby Fabbri goal willed the Blues to victory.

San Jose has largely succeeded this postseason on the wings of Joe Pavelski, who has nine goals (tied for the NHL playoff lead with Tampa’s Nikita Kucherov), and Logan Couture, who leads the league with 17 postseason points. The Blues will definitely need to contain those two, as well as veteran center Joe Thornton and dynamic defenseman Brent Burns, if they plan on succeeding in this series. A massive chunk of the Sharks’ production has come from their top two forward lines and the Burns/Marc-Edouard Vlasic defensive pairing, though, so if the Blues can shut down their most productive players, they should have a solid chance to thrive.

Check out the next few pages to see what the Blues and Sharks’ lineups will look like on Sunday night:

Next: Blues Lineup