St. Louis Blues

Match time

Tampa Bay Lightnings

Tournament: NHL

Venue: Stadium: Scottrade Center (St. Louis).

The continuation of the regular season of the National Hockey League will be a match in which the St. Louis Blues will meet with the Tampa Bay Lightning. This is the most anticipated event on the tour, as these teams are the strongest in their conferences. Let's try to predict who will win in the eternal struggle between the West and the East.

St. Louis Blues

St. Louis is feeling great this season, confidently getting points in every match they play. In the last four games, Mike Yeo's squad has achieved a 100 percent success rate. In the last match, the “musicians” met with one of the NHL outsiders and were able to indicate their advantage only in overtime. Currently, the St. Louis Blues occupy the top line of the Western Conference standings, with a minimal gap from their closest competitor.

Tampa Bay Lightning

The Tampa Lightning delights its fans with excellent offensive performances. Not every opponent of this team can cope with the powerful attacks of the forwards. Similar to the St. Louis Blues, Cooper's team has a winning streak of 4 games. Only “Winnipeg” at this time managed to fray the nerves of the “Lightning”, losing after the main time of the match. The Tampa Bay Lightning's position is first in the Eastern Conference. The lead over the closest pursuer in the race of leaders is only 2 points.

Forecast

The bookmakers set equal chances for the teams to win. However, based on the technical components of recent performances, we can tilt a slight advantage towards Lightning. The controversial confrontation between St. Louis and Buffalo shows that best team The West is not perfect, and its hockey players can also make ridiculous mistakes. “Tampa” does not forgive such a game, punishing for such mistakes.

Match forecast: victory in the Tampa match, taking into account OT and shootouts (W2).

On December 13, as part of the NHL regular season, the leaders of the Western and Eastern Conferences will meet. The St. Louis Blues will host the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Both teams have some of the league's best offensive and defensive performances. Surprisingly, the rivals Lately operate on the same schedule. The opponents, having suffered defeat, won four victories in a row, and in the last round both clubs had to play extra time. Tampa beat Winnipeg (4:3 OT), St. Louis defeated Buffalo (3:2 OT). True, there is one “but”: if the Lightning met mainly with top clubs, then the Blues dealt with the middle peasants and outsiders of the league.

The opponents played one head-to-head match this season. In mid-October, Tampa celebrated a victory at home with a score of 2:1. Now the Lightning, in our opinion, look a little preferable to their opponent. Firstly, John Cooper’s team recently cannot be stopped even strong teams included in the playoff zone. Secondly, guests have fewer problems with staffing. Therefore, we recommend betting that

Start of the game: 04:00 (Moscow time).

The most interesting game-day match will take place in St. Louis, where the local team will meet Tampa Bay at the St. Louis Blues arena. This confrontation promises to be the main event of the game day, as both teams set themselves the highest goals in the regular season and have a serious selection of players.

St. Louis.

The Blues started the regular season very strongly and are in second position in the Western Conference, where they are one of the most productive teams of the season. The St. Louis roster is more than competitive, and includes such strong players as: Tarasenko, Steen, Schwartz, Stastny, Pietrangelo and Bouwmeester. Runs this American hockey club venerable coach - Ken Hitchcock, who knows how to build competitive teams. Also, one cannot ignore St. Louis' four victories in the last five NHL rounds.

Tampa Bay.

The Lightning are also in the playoff zone in the Eastern Conference, occupying seventh position in the standings. But, unlike St. Louis, Tampa is not as powerful and has certain problems in achieving results. The club lost 4 of the last 5 meetings of the regular season, and risks falling out of the top eight clubs in its conference if the series of failures continues. Tampa's roster is also filled with famous players, among which hockey players such as Callahan, Stamkos, Bishop, Garrison and Kucherov (the club's top scorer at the moment) stand out.

Forecast for the match.

To speak at the moment about the equal level of these teams is unethical in relation to St. Louis, since the Blues look many times stronger. Perhaps something will change during the season, but at the moment, the hosts are the favorites.

Bet: St. Louis win with handicap (0) - odds 1.71.

Also, last meetings between St. Louis and Tampa were not known for their high scoring numbers, and the final scores were often similar to those of football games. Therefore, the choice should definitely be made in favor of “total less”.

Bet: Total under (5.5) goals - odds 1.66.

The Blues are in the lead in the Western Conference, where there is a tight fight not only for places in the top three divisions, but also for getting into the wild card zone. The statistics of St. Louis' performances at home and away are very even - 68 and 67 percent of victories. The Lightning, who have won eight out of 13 away games, are comfortably in the lead in the East.

There are two key questions before this game. Firstly, will the hosts be able to neutralize the Floridians’ strike line, and secondly, will Cooper find options to strengthen the second attacking combination through rotation. Our expert Vladimir Dekhtyarev answers these questions in great detail.

“This match has an extremely attractive sign. Face-to-face meeting conference leaders, by definition, should turn out to be interesting. The opponents approached this match in very good condition, both teams won four victories in a row. In my opinion, the game today is expected to be low-key, and St. Louis will have a little more chances to win.

Yes, the Lightning have a powerful attack, but the Blues are famous for their defense, Jake Allen is fine. I don’t think we can count on a large number of goals scored today. Moreover, there is a high probability that the teams will not have enough 60 minutes to determine the winner.

In this regard, I preferred the bet TM (5.5) for 1.95 and F1 (0) with a coefficient of 2.03. And I will explain why this is the choice. Yes, the bookmakers indicated a slight advantage for the Lightning. But there are several points on which I would like to dwell in more detail.

Firstly, the “lightning” have developed some kind of complex when playing against teams that are potentially equal to them in class, direct competitors in the fight in the playoffs. It’s not without reason that John Cooper now began to change the combinations in the top 6, despite the grumbling of the fans.

He understands that when playing with opponents whose level is equal to or slightly higher than the level of his guys, the opponent has a number of tangible advantages. And Washington, Pittsburgh, to some extent, the Islanders and even Boston took advantage of them. After all, the task is formulated quite simple. In fact, Tampa’s opponents only need to take the first line out of the game.

And we have already seen that just such teams coped with this task very confidently. Kucherov stopped scoring, and the team found itself in a very difficult situation. And the mentor is forced to make rather controversial decisions. “St. Louis is a team that has and can play in exactly this way, we all see it.

In this match, it will be interesting for me to see what Cooper comes up with with his lineup. Removing Kucherov from the first link is a necessary measure. On the one hand, he disperses firepower, but, on the other, if the hosts manage to close Stamkos’ three, there will be no one to score at all. And the owners, as I already said, have the potential for this.

It won't be forgotten that the Blues will have home bench advantage. Mike Yeo will have the opportunity to release lines onto the ice after the opponent, which is a key point for the task at hand. And Cooper's task is thereby made doubly difficult. Therefore, I suggest taking zero handicap on the hosts, because if the game goes into overtime, in a 3 on 3 game the guests will have a chance, this is obvious,” the expert sums up.

"Vinline" - BR Awards 2019

Place: Scottrade Center, St. Louis, USA

Tournament: National Hockey League. Regular season.

Analytics and match review

On Wednesday, December thirteenth, as part of the regular season of the National Hockey League, a match will take place between the St. Louis Blues and Tampa Bay Lightning teams. The game will take place in St. Louis, on the ice of the Scottrade Center. The match starts at 04:00 Moscow time.

St. Louis played 31 games in the regular season. The team has eleven victories in home ice and ten away. St. Louis lost five home and five away games.

Tampa played 29 matches this season. The team has thirteen wins on home ice and eight on the road. Tampa lost three home and five away games.

Forecast and bets for the match St. Louis Blues – Tampa Bay Lightning

St. Louis won its fourth straight game. This time the team beat the Buffalo Sabers. Buffalo resisted until the last seconds: goalkeeper Robin Lehner saved or blocked more than forty shots. In the second minute of the match, Schenn opened the scoring, and Paul Stastny scored another goal three minutes before the end of the second period. In the third period, the Sabers bounced back: Evan Rodriguez scored two goals for St. Louis. As a result, Buffalo received a well-deserved point for participating in overtime, but the victory after Tarasenko's puck went to St. Louis.

Tampa beat the team in the previous match Winnipeg Jets. An unusual situation for the NHL: all three periods of the game ended with a draw, and in each the teams scored a puck against each other. Winnipeg took the lead twice – after goals from Copp and Ehlers. Gourdet and Kucherov compared the score. In the second period, Sergachev put Tampa ahead for a couple of minutes - after which Connor evened the score. Point scored the final goal in the second minute of overtime.

The match between St. Louis and Tampa is one of the most interesting this week. Both teams are conference leaders: St. Louis is the leader in the West, Tampa is the leader in the East. The teams have similar statistics and style of play. The only match between the teams took place in Tampa in mid-October. The Lightning won the home match with a score of 2:1.

The best bets for the match St. Louis Blues - Tampa Bay Lightning, in our opinion, will be total under 6 (under 6) 1.68 and total under 6.5 (under 6.5) 1.49.

St. Louis Blues – Tampa Bay Lightning

NHL 12/13/17 04:00 Moscow time

Bet: total less than 6 (TM 6)

St. Louis Blues – Tampa Bay Lightning

NHL 12/13/17 04:00 Moscow time

Bet: total less than 6.5 (TM 6.5)

Interesting facts before the match St. Louis Blues - Tampa Bay Lightning

• Within the NHL, the teams played 40 matches. St. Louis has 21 wins in regulation and three in overtime. Tampa has 10 wins in regulation and two in overtime.

Bookmaker odds for the match St. Louis Blues - Tampa Bay Lightning

*All odds are clickable, the best ones are highlighted.