Can Jaroslav Halak Pull Out All the Stops for St. Louis to Make the Postseason? at BetLM

Can Jaroslav Halak Pull Out All the Stops for St. Louis to Make the Postseason?

We all recall two years ago when Jaroslav Halak made him­self a house­hold name in Mon­treal by help­ing lead the Cana­di­ens to the East­ern Con­fer­ence finals. After being traded to St. Louis last off­sea­son and going through what some would say was a bit of a dis­ap­point­ing year for the Slo­va­kian net­min­der, the Blues enter this sea­son with a lot of hype.

After all, the Blues come into the new sea­son healthy with all of their youth­ful big guns ready to show what they’re made of in the NHL. David Backes starts the year as the team’s new cap­tain and guys like T.J. Oshie, Patrik Berglund, Alex Steen, Matt D’Agostini, and Kevin Shat­tenkirk are look­ing to be the guys that bust things up in the West. The keys to doing that, how­ever, my rest in Halak’s hands.

After a dis­ap­point­ing pre­sea­son, Halak is hop­ing it’s not a sign of things to come and he knows the pres­sure is on him to pull it together and get the Blues to the play­offs. Jeremy Ruther­ford of the St. Louis Dis­patch has the story.

Still, there is some con­cern about how the Blues’ No. 1 net­min­der will respond in his sec­ond sea­son with the club after a pre­sea­son per­for­mance that won’t show up on any of his per­sonal high­light reels. He was 1–2 with a 2.68 GAA and .869 save-percentage.

“No one ever won the league in the pre­sea­son,” Halak said. “I know every­body wants to see the wins and no one wants to lose. … I only won one (game) … so what can I do? It’s only the pre­sea­son, so let’s turn the page and focus on our prac­tices right now and espe­cially Saturday’s game.”

They’ll need Halak to be on top of his game because things aren’t confidence-inspiring when it comes to his back­ups. Brian Elliott beat out Ben Bishop for the backup job in train­ing camp and while Elliott has been a starter in Ottawa and Col­orado, those weren’t exactly the great­est teams. Elliott split time with Pas­cal Leclaire in 2009–2010 when the Sen­a­tors went to the play­offs, but the wheels came off the train last year in Ottawa and he was dealt to Col­orado for Craig Ander­son. Things didn’t improve in Den­ver and the Avs allowed Elliott to walk as a free agent.

Suf­fice it to say, it’s Halak or bust in St. Louis. Pro­vided Halak can stay healthy all year and show the kind of game he had in Mon­treal that made the Habs an impos­si­ble team to face in the post­sea­son, the Blues fig­ure to be equally dif­fi­cult to deal with. They’re skilled, they have pesky and tough defen­sive play­ers, and they’re young and brim­ming with con­fi­dence. It’s the per­fect mix for St. Louis to be a post­sea­son hope­ful this sea­son. Halak will hope that a poor pre­sea­son is just that and he can take care of busi­ness when the games count begin­ning on Saturday.

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