Yahoo Sport 
Can the Blackhawks survive elimination from Blues?
In the St. Louis Blues’ series against the Chicago Blackhawks, two things have become apparent.
The first is that with Brian Elliott playing the best hockey of his life and the Blues displaying more backbone, brute force and blistering offense than in their previous meandering playoff journeys, there’s something different about this team.
The second is that the Blackhawks are also different, for the wrong reasons.
Their mental errors and lapses are egregious. Their lack of quality depth at forward and especially on the blue line has been exposed. The troubling trends we saw in the regular-season – puck possession, relying far too much on Corey Crawford and Patrick Kane’s line – appear now to be harbingers of playoff doom.
So now we come to the brink for these two teams: One more St. Louis win, and the Blackhawks are eliminated. And they’ll have three cracks at it, beginning Thursday night in Game 5 at home.
“We’ve got to win one more on Thursday in order to close this out and we’re going to start 0-0. We have to build the whole thing over again, refocus, and get a win at home,” said David Backes.
It’s in Game 5 where we’ll see if the Blues’ business-like focus translates into a killer instinct. It’s in Game 5 where we’ll see if the players whose performances have led to three Blackhawks Stanley Cups in six years can exert their will on the series, with their heels on the edge of the abyss.
There are reasons to believe in the Blackhawks. There’s that 7-1 record since 2013 when facing elimination. There’s the notion that Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Marian Hossa, Artemi Panarin, Andrew Ladd and Teuvo Teravainen can’t go five games without scoring a goal that’s not into an empty net. (That’s Panarin’s only tally of the series.) In the case of Ladd and Teravainen, they’ve yet to hit the score sheet.
In practice on Thursday, coach Joel Quenneville had Toews and Kane with Teravainen.
They’re due, right?
But what if they’re not? What if Brian Elliott’s 144 saves on 151 shots are an indication that he has this series in the webbing of his glove? What if the Vladimir Tarasenko line is so dominant that it’s fueling the Blues’ offense and hindering the Blackhawks’ defense?
Save Game 4 (where St. Louis nursed a lead for long stretches), the Blues have far and away been the better team with the Tarasenko group on the ice. They’re getting 60 per cent of the scoring chances and 59 per cent of the goals – numbers that generally go the way of Chicago at 5-on-5.
If you think the one-sided scoring chance and shot differentials aren’t having an impact, consider that Chicago’s managed to score all of one goal with the Tarasenko group on the ice. It’s extremely difficult to mount offence when you’re consistently defending the run of play – a problem that’s demonstrably observable in this series, and true for long spurts of the regular season. (Reminder: Chicago was out-scored by Arizona and Edmonton at evens this year.)
That last part is important to remember, as the Blackhawks face elimination: For all the rings, for all the names, for all the accomplishments … this isn’t the same quality product we expect to roll off the assembly line from Chicago’s championship factory.
They finished 13th in score-adjusted corsi at 51.3 percent after years of being in the top five, sometimes top three in possession. They were a one-line team for too much of the season. The depth issues on their blue line were covered by Corey Crawford’s stellar play, but they’re exposed now.
Trevor van Riemsdyk went from a 7-minute-per-game extra D-man in last postseason to 23:50 per game through four games against the Blues. He’s a minus-5 and basically assisted on the Blues’ two third-period goals in Game 4.
How much does this team miss the steady poise of Johnny Oduya? Of Patrick Sharp? How much does it miss Brandon Saad now?
Of course, those are players they lost as victims of their own success in a salary-capped league, and more tough decisions are on the way: Andrew Shaw, despite his regrettable vocabulary, has been the team’s best forward this series before his suspension and goes RFA.
All of this is say that these aren’t the same Blackhawks, these aren’t the same Blues and the defending champs going out in five games isn’t the result we expected.
But one more effort from the Blues like we saw in Chicago, and the throne is empty.
--
Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.
MORE FROM YAHOO HOCKEY
