Hochman: ‘They rip you apart.’ Avs offense dominates, but Blues D is better than last postseason

“Even an avalanche,” said Mother Nature, “is not as overwhelming as the avalanche.”

The hockey team finished first in the Western Conference with five players finishing in the top 30 in points per game. The highest a Blues player finished was 31.

This is not to criticize the St. Louis offense. Heck, the Blues scored 309 goals, the third-most in the National Hockey League, and one goal plus that Colorado scored. But like the last postseason, and all these annual matchups with the Burgundy and Blues, the only way for St. Louis to win is to stifle and block this onslaught of offense.

Now one encouraging thing is that it seems to happen annually around this time this year.

Remember how World Series hero Reggie Jackson was “Mr. October”, while Dave Winfield was considered “Mr. Can”? Well, from a hockey standpoint, the Avs have long been Mr. Octobers.

In the previous four years, Colorado finished first, second, fifth, and fourth in the division. Not once have the Avs advanced to the conference finals.

But this could be his May if the Blues can’t replicate their game from the Minnesota series.

“It’s important that you try to neutralize his speed as much as possible,” Blues coach Craig Berube said after practice on Saturday. “And people have to do a good job with certain players, for sure. And, as a team concept, you have to be, as much as possible, on the right side of things.

“I think when you look at how they score goals and the way they play, there are a lot of odd man careers, there are a lot of misses and things like that. They separate you. And if you’re not above the crowd, and you don’t have numbers, that’s what happens. So we have to do a good job there. But it’s really going to come down to playing on the right side of things, controlling really well, and when we get the puck, do something with it.”

That was a good Minnesota team, but the Blues made Wild wither. In the four losses, Minnesota scored five goals. In the six games total, Minnesota scored 10 goals from five on five. Despite all the talk about Kevin Fiala, he didn’t score in the series. And even though Kirill Kaprizov is a stick genius with a master stroke, he did not score or only scored one goal in four of the six games.

Defensemen Nick Leddy and Colton Parayko had some success against Kaprizov because, Berube shared, “they had good spaces on him to minimize the separation. … There were still times when he did something, he’s a good player, but gaps are really important, and having good sticks. Those two things, for me, when you play against the best players, are the two most important things.

“And the other thing we did: We didn’t give up the odd man races later in the series. We did a really good job of staying above people and reloading.”

Kaprizov is like a cheat code. However, the Blues defeated him. And like, well, a video game, the Blues have advanced to the next level, where they will face an even better Kaprizov: Nathan MacKinnon, whom Berube called “one of the best forwards in the National Hockey League.”

Oh, and there’s Cale Makar, who is “perhaps the best defenseman in the National Hockey League,” Berube said.

And there’s Mikko Rantanen, who led the Avs in points (92).

And there’s Gabe Landeskog, who had the symbolic hit in Game 2 of last year’s series, when he smashed fellow captain Ryan O’Reilly into the boards early … and his team scored soon after.

And there’s Nazem Kadri, whose vicious jab at Justin Faulk was disgusting and eliminated the great defenseman from the 2021 series.

Which makes it time to point out that the Blues’ defensive unit is stronger than it was last postseason. And that’s even without the injured Torey Krug (and Marco Scandella, too). The Parayko Cup champion was playing through pain last spring. He is better now. Leddy has been better than even the Blues could have imagined him to be. Niko Mikkola is not afraid. And Faulk is playing hockey at such a high level, on both ends of the ice.

“He’s been amazing, he’s been a horse there,” Leddy said of Faulk. “You look at his game, he’s very stable, he has that great first pass, incredible shooting and good playmaking ability. Definitely lucky to have him on our team.”

The Avalanche, overwhelming and all, still has the upper hand against St. Louis. And homemade ice. But this series sure looks like it will be more of a series than last year’s series.