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Avs and Blues could both exit NHL playoffs with regret

Colorado and St. Louis are both guilty of seeing their focus shift from the monumental task at hand. So which will have it come back and bite them?

Video Transcript

JUSTIN CUTHBERT: Edmonton will move on to meet either the Avs or Blues in the next round after that Central Division final was forced to a sixth game after an epic collapse by the Colorado Avalanche in game 5 on home ice. St Louis scored in what, the final five or six minutes twice to erase leads, including erasure of one of the single-greatest moments of the postseason, when Nathan MacKinnon, who has taken these losses Colorado has had in recent seasons so personally in the past, decided it wasn't going down like that, went end to end, scored the goal of the playoffs to put the Avalanche up front with a hat trick. But after that, the Avs, the arena, everything, it just looked like they were, OK, we're going to win on that storybook ending, and we don't have to do anything after that.

The defending with St Louis deploying an extra attacker was lazy. It was shoddy. It was horrific really, with St Louis pressing for that tying goal the second time. Robert Thomas put it in, and Tyler Bozak scored in overtime.

Now I was ready to publish a piece basically ripping the Blues for taking their eye off the ball, even if it was just momentarily there in game 4, and caring more about Nazem Kadri and revenge than they were the entire Avalanche team and defeating a juggernaut like Colorado. And I still may do it if it ends in 6 because the St Louis Blues are right in this series. And it's very possible that losing their focus, albeit momentarily, just is the difference in them advancing or going home.

You need everything, including undivided attention, to beat the Colorado Avalanche, or at least I think. And for a moment, they were more concerned about something else. And I still expect it to cost them, and it might hurt even worse because they are so close to being not the better team but the winning team in this series.