{"id":466969,"date":"2025-04-19T08:00:47","date_gmt":"2025-04-19T12:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=466969"},"modified":"2025-04-19T08:01:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T12:01:39","slug":"winnipeg-jets-vs-st-louis-blues-first-round-series-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/04\/19\/winnipeg-jets-vs-st-louis-blues-first-round-series-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"Winnipeg Jets vs. St. Louis Blues: First-Round Series Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

The path to Lord Stanley begins. After six months of regular-season play, we have 16 teams ready to compete to hoist the Stanley Cup. Throughout the Stanley Cup Playoffs,\u00a0<\/span>Last Word On Hockey\u00a0<\/span><\/em>will take an in-depth look at each series, giving reviews and offering our predictions for each game. Today, we present our first-round preview of the series between the President’s Trophy-winning Winnipeg Jets and the St. Louis Blues.<\/span><\/p>\n

First-Round Series Preview: Jets vs. Blues<\/span><\/h2>\n

Season Series: Jets Won 3-1<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

For a fourth straight season, the Jets won the regular-season series with the Blues, winning three out of four games. One of the more notable games of the series came on <\/span>April 7th<\/span><\/a>. The Jets beat the Blues, 3-1, to end the Blues’ 12-game winning streak. Furthermore, the loss was one of three straight for the Blues that saw their playoff lead grow slim until they clinched on the season’s final day.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite the success of the Jets, the games have been close. This season, only one game was decided by two goals or less. This differed from the 2023-24 season, where all but one game had a <\/span>goal differential of plus three<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Playoff History: 2019 (Blues Won 4-2)<\/span><\/h3>\n

The Jets and Blues have met in the playoffs once before. In the first round in 2019, the Blues won the series in six games. The road team won all but the final game in the series. Jaden Schwartz <\/span>scored four goals in the final two games for the Blues<\/span><\/a>, including a game-winning goal in Game 5 with 15 seconds left and a hat trick in Game 6.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jets Key to Victory<\/span><\/h3>\n

Hellebuyck Has Postseason Demons to Exorcise\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

In 2018, Connor Hellebuyck helped the Jets reach the Western Conference Final. Since then, he has struggled between the pipes for the Jets. The last two postseasons have seen Hellebuyck play abysmal hockey. During the 2023 playoffs, Hellebuyck posted a 3.44 goals-against average with a save percentage of just .886. In 2024, he posted an even worse 5.23 GAA and a lower .864 save percentage.<\/span><\/p>\n

If the Jets want to advance past this round, they need Hellebuyck to perform. He has not been anywhere close to good enough in the playoffs recently, and his poor track record has some fans apprehensive about the team’s chances despite winning the President’s Trophy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Blues Key to Victory<\/span><\/h3>\n

Secondary Scoring<\/span><\/h4>\n

The Blues last made the playoffs in 2022. That year, Jordan Kyrou performed well in the team’s 12 games, scoring seven goals. Kyrou produced secondary scoring on a Blues team that had players like Vladimir Tarasenko, Ryan O’Reilly, and David Perron. If teams chose to match up against them, Kyrou could pick up the slack and score.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This time around, Kyrou is the leading scorer on this Blues team. As such, he (among others) will be the one the Jets will pay attention to. The Blues will need to find secondary scoring. This is where Dylan Holloway’s absence may be felt. Holloway did well all season by using his speed to create scoring chances and goals. Even without Holloway, however, the Blues have other players capable of producing secondary scoring. Radek Faksa brings 79 games worth of playoff experience to the Blues lineup. Zachardy Bolduc and Brayden Schenn each nearly scored 20 goals this season. Schenn, of course, was on the <\/span>Blues Stanley Cup team in 2019<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Who Wins the Series?<\/span><\/h3>\n

In the last ten years, a President’s Trophy team has been knocked out of the playoffs in the first round just twice, in <\/span>2019<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>2023<\/span><\/a>. Even with the playoff struggles in the past, the Jets are in this spot for a reason. They have played great hockey all season.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As for the Blues, <\/span>they are ahead of schedule with their retooling<\/span><\/a>. That right there should satisfy them regardless of what happens in this series. With that being said, the Blues match up well with the Jets. Jordan Binnington is a proven winner in big games. The defensive core is the best it has been since 2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore, the Blues are a fast team. The Jets play physically, but that style also makes them a little slower sometimes. The Blues can use that speed to outmatch the Jets in the middle of the ice and create scoring chances.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This may be bold, but we are picking the President’s Trophy winners to be eliminated in round one.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Blues win the series, 4-2.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Main Photo: James Carey Lauder- Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n

Please play responsibly. Check for your local rules and age restrictions. Some jurisdictions require ages 21+. Have a gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The path to Lord Stanley begins. After six months of regular-season play, we have 16 teams ready to compete to hoist the Stanley Cup. Throughout the Stanley Cup Playoffs,\u00a0Last Word On Hockey\u00a0will take an in-depth look at each series, giving reviews and offering our predictions for each game. Today, we present our first-round preview of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3464,"featured_media":467033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4524,4547,4548,32,33],"tags":[8133,359,3759,2344],"class_list":["post-466969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nhl-predictions","category-hockey","category-nhl","category-blues","category-jets","tag-2025-stanley-cup-playoffs","tag-connor-hellebuyck","tag-jordan-binnington","tag-jordan-kyrou"],"modified_by":"Dan Mount, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3464"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466969"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":467034,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466969\/revisions\/467034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}