2019 Stanley Cup Conference Finals Preview

There were 16 teams that entered the Stanley Cup playoffs, and now just four remain to battle for one of the most terrific trophies in all of sport. In the Western Conference, the San Jose Sharks and the St. Louis Blues will square off, and in the Eastern Conference, the Boston Bruins and the Carolina Hurricanes remain. San Jose and St. Louis advanced in seven-game marathons, while Boston only needed six games to eliminate Columbus, and Carolina eliminated the New York Islanders in just four games. Which two teams will advance to the Stanley Cup Finals? Take a look at our NHL betting preview for the 2019 Stanley Cup Conference Finals.

2019 Stanley Cup Conference Finals Preview

Western Conference: St. Louis Blues vs San Jose Sharks

• 2019 Stanley Cup Conference Finals Series Odds: Blues +100 / Sharks -120

The St. Louis Blues have come a long way since January, when they were in the basement of the Western Conference standings and let head coach Mike Yeo go, in favor of Craig Berube. Rookie Jordan Binnington took over in net (and earned a Calder Trophy nomination along the way), and all the Blues have done since is eliminate Winnipeg in six games and Dallas in seven to get back to the conference finals. The San Jose Sharks have also put together a terrific comeback — although theirs came more recently, as they found themselves down 3-1 in their first-round series in these playoffs to the Vegas Golden Knights. Goaltender Martin Jones had looked dreadful and had failed to finish two of the three games Vegas had won. Then came three straight wins, including a double-overtime win in Vegas for Game 6 and the controversial major penalty that they received in Game 7 that spurred them to turn a 3-0 deficit into an overtime win. That major penalty led to an injury to Joe Pavelski, who would miss the whole second-round series until Game 7, when he helped the Sharks eliminate Colorado with a goal and an assist. The two teams are fairly even when it comes to top scoring lines. For the Blues, this unit is Brayden Schenn, Jaden Schwartz and Vladimir Tarasenko, and Schwartz leads the team with eight goals in 13 postseason games, while Tarasenko has five. The Sharks have gotten six goals out of their top line of Logan Couture, Gustav Nyquist and Timo Meier. The Sharks have an advantage of depth, particularly with the return of Pavelski. On defense, the Blues have Alex Pietrangelo and Colton Parayko, each anchoring a blue line pairing. The Sharks have Brent Burns, Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Erik Karlsson — three elite defensemen, giving the Sharks a slight edge. In goal, the Blues have the higher save percentage, as Binnington has posted a .915 and a 2.39 goals against average. However, if you take out the dreadful losses against Vegas, and if you factor in the relative danger of scoring chances, Jones has been better, so this is fairly even too. 2019 Stanley Cup Conference Finals Pick: San Jose in seven.

Eastern Conference: Boston Bruins vs Carolina Hurricanes

• 2019 Stanley Cup Conference Finals Series Odds: Hurricanes +260 / Bruins -320

The Carolina Hurricanes are definitely an outlier when it comes to advancing to the conference finals. Their salary is at just 78.6 percent of the cap, according to ESPN.com, which is the lowest of any team to advance to a conference finals in the past eight seasons, and the second-lowest was 93.2 percent (the Los Angeles Kings six seasons ago). The Boston Bruins have a lot of the same core players that they had in 2013, when they went all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals and lost to the Chicago Blackhawks. For players like Zdeno Chara, Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, David Krejci, and Tuukka Rask, this could be the end of their championship window. The Carolina top scoring line has Sebastian Aho at center and has had a variety of contributors around him, such as Teuvo Teravainen, Nino Niederreiter, Warren Foegele and Justin Williams. But they can’t hang with Bergeron, Marchand and David Pastrnak, who put up 11 points in the last two games of the Bruins’ series with Columbus to advance. The Carolina blue line is guarded by Jaccob Slavin and a bunch of other talented defenders, but Boston also has a solid defensive corps, led by Charlie McAvoy and Brandon Carlo — but the B’s tend to give up a lot of shots. In goal, Boston has Tuukka Rask, who posted a .955 even-strength save percentage in the last four games of the Columbus series. Carolina has two solid goalies, Petr Mrazek, who has strated the majority of the postseason games, and Curtis McElhinney, the oldest goalie ever to make an NHL playoff debut, but Rask is better than both of them. 2019 Stanley Cup Conference Finals Pick: Boston in six.