Avalanche Look to Avenge Opening-Night Loss vs Blues

The Colorado Avalanche started their 2021 quest for the Cup with an Sportsbook night loss to division rival St. Louis in convincing fashion. The Avs were heavily out chanced in the 4-1 loss and are favorites to bounce back in Friday’s rematch. These teams split their season series 2-2 last year.

Sportsbook Odds Analysis

The game opened with the Avalanche as favorites at -149 and the line has settled in the -138 to -150 range. The total opened at 5.5 and is now locked in at 6 with the UNDER favored between -114 and -120.

St. Louis News & Notes

The Blues may be the forgotten team in a division with Cup favorites Colorado and Vegas, but the team is just a year-and-a-half removed from winning the Cup.

The Blues of today are a much different team from that Cup-winning squad as they lost captain Alex Pietrangelo to Vegas and made several key additions. Defenseman Torey Krug steps into Pietrangelo’s spot on the blueline while winger Mike Hoffman adds some scoring to a group without star forward Vladimir Tarasenko until at least February.

Fantasy and DFS players should look out for third-year pro Robert Thomas. A first-round pick in 2017, Thomas had ten goals and 42 points in 66 games last season and had two assists in the Wednesday’s opener. Thomas will center the second line for the Blues.

Jordan Binnington will again be between the pipes for the Blues after a decent 2019-2020 season where he went 30-13-7 with a .912 save percentage and 2.56 goals against average.

Colorado News & Notes

The Colorado Avalanche were out chanced 22 to 11 on Sportsbook night and it might not be long before questions around their goaltending situation arise. The Avs are stacked with premier talented skaters with the likes of Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, Mikko Rantanen and Gabriel Landeskog. But goaltending is the team’s biggest question mark after the tandem of Pavel Francouz and Philipp Grubauer was a sore spot for the team – particularly in the playoffs.

Grubauer started Sportsbook night and allowed four goals on 32 shots, good for a .875 save percentage. The veteran went 18-12-4 last season with a .916 save percentage and 2.63 goals against average. Francouz, slated for the No. 2 role this year, had the better numbers last season going 21-7-4 with a .923 save percentage. Bettors will need to watch the situation closely and anticipate the team adding a goalie at some point.

It is hard to see the high-powered forwards on the Avs staying off the scoresheet for too long. Colorado is the heavy favorite in this game for a reason and we think they bounce back in a big way.