Round two in the West kicks off with a huge game in Denver as the Colorado Avalanche will possess a home-ice advantage against the St. Louis Blues. The Avs are coming off of the only sweep in the playoffs so far as they took down the Predators pretty easily. The Blues, on the other hand, certainly had their work cut out for them as they took down a strong Wild team in six games. Honestly, it's a shame to see these two teams battle it out in the second round when they could've easily faced off in the conference final. Nevertheless, let's get the second round underway as it’s time to continue our NHL odds series with a Blues-Avalanche prediction and pick.

Here are the Blues-Avalanche NHL Odds, Courtesy of FanDuel

NHL Odds: Blues-Avalanche Odds

St. Louis Blues: +1.5 (-137) (+176 ML)

Colorado Avalanche: -1.5 (+114) (-215 ML)

Over: 7 (+110)

Under: 7 (-134)

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Why The Blues Can Cover The Spread/Win

The St. Louis Blues has an offense that shined through in the first round against a Wild team who has very underrated defensive abilities. Now they enter this series against an even stronger Avs offense, so they'll need to keep up where they can. The Blues have a way of finding scoring chances by being patient, looking for those opportunities, and striking when the time comes. They play very slowly and like to control the pace but while they don't typically shoot a lot of shots on goal, the ones that they do shoot, they make count.

The biggest concern for the Blues isn't their play style, it's their goaltending, which was a little shaky in the first series before switching starters and finding that rhythm. Jordan Binnington will likely get the start tonight as he finished out the first round with three consecutive wins and a .943 save percentage. I don't think it will last against this Avs team, but the Blues seem confident, and sometimes that's all you need.

Why The Avalanche Can Cover The Spread/Win

The Colorado Avalanche are now in the classic “rest vs rust” debate where it's almost a bad thing to sweep a team so early in the round. As a player, you'd want to stay loose and keep the momentum going but now you have to wait a week or two to play your next game, it can be a lot of pressure. With that said, the Avs look good, really good. But that's nothing really new, they dominated all season long and ran a mockery of the Predators in the last round, they're ready for battle.

One thing I've noticed with the Avs is that they changed their lines up a little bit for the playoffs. Captain Gabe Landeskog is usually on the first line, but ever since coming back from his injury, he's been placed on the second line. Maybe it's to give him slightly less ice-time to help heal up a little bit, or maybe it's just a big brain move by coach Bednar to put a little more talent on the second line without sacrificing much on the first line. Either way, it's worked out really well so far and I think we might see it again in this series.

Goaltender Darcy Kuemper had an excellent regular season and a very good first round, finishing with a .934 save percentage through his first couple of games before being poked in the eye with a stick in game three. Luckily it wasn't anything too serious and he'll be back for game one of this series.

Final Blues-Avalanche Prediction & Pick

Both of these teams have been playing extremely well down the stretch and kept their momentum going with a round one win, but who's going to come out firing in round two? The odds aren't great, but I think that kind of backs up my pick of the Avs winning this series (shocker) in, let's say six games for safety. They're just such a good team that I think they're going to be hard to beat for the playoffs in general, let alone this series. For game one, I'm going to take the total over. It's a little high for my liking at 7 total goals, but I think this is going to be a high-scoring series and they'll set the tone for that starting tonight.

Final Blues-Avalanche Prediction and Pick: Over 7 (+110)