from Pierre LeBrun of ESPN,

It is a matchup the St. Louis Blues will take over seven games, and this thing sure has the look of seven: Jori Lehtera's winner Sunday night coming with the San Jose Sharks' third line on the ice.

No offense to Chris Tierney's unit for the Sharks, which played well the previous round against the Nashville Predators, but if the Blues can get Lehtera's unit -- with Vladimir Tarasenko and Jaden Schwartz out there, or any of their top three lines -- matched up against San Jose's third line, this is an area St. Louis can exploit throughout the Western Conference finals.

This is a series pitting two evenly matched teams. Games will be won by a hair, the way it was Sunday with the Blues prevailing 2-1 in Game 1 and the Sharks perhaps unlucky after outshooting the hosts 32-23 and owning the larger share of Grade A looks.

So the smallest of edges might make the difference from night to night in this series.

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from Mark Purdy of the Mercury News,