The St. Louis Blues, led by center Robert Thomas, meet Kyle Connor and the Winnipeg Jets to kick off their NHL Playoffs Round 1 series on Saturday, Apr. 19 (4/19/2025) at Canada Life Centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
How to watch: Fans can watch the game for free via a trial of DirecTV Stream. The game can also be streamed on Sling (half off first month).
Here’s what you need to know:
What: NHL Playoffs, Round 1
Who: St. Louis Blues vs. Winnipeg Jets
When: Saturday, Apr. 19, 2025
Where: Canada Life Centre
Time: 6 p.m. ET
TV channel: TNT, truTV, FanDuel Sports Midwest
Live stream: DirecTV Stream (free trial), Sling, Hulu + Live TV
Blues vs. Jets schedule
- Saturday, April 19: Blues @ Jets, 6 p.m. ET on TNT (STREAM)
- Monday, April 21: Blues @ Jets, 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN2 (STREAM)
- Thursday, April 24: Jets @ Blues, 9:30 p.m. ET on ESPN2 (STREAM)
- Sunday, April 27: Jets @ Blues, 1 p.m. ET on TBS (STREAM)
- Wednesday, April 30: Blues @ Jets, TBD
- Friday, May 2: Jets @ Blues, TBD
- Sunday, May 4: Blues @ Jets, TBD
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Here’s a game preview via the Associated Press:
WINNIPEG, Manitoba (AP) — After the St. Louis Blues won for the 19th time in 26 games since mid-February to make the playoffs, captain Brayden Schenn took it in and was eager to move on.
“We’ve been on a good run here,” Schenn said. “At the same time, just can’t be happy that we’re in.”
Happy not to be on the outside looking in like they were two months ago, but the Blues’ reward for reaching the postseason as the second wild card in the West is a first-round matchup against the NHL-best Winnipeg Jets, who have been atop the conference for some time. Playing meaningful hockey down the stretch could benefit St. Louis, but none of that means anything in a best-of-seven series starting Saturday at Winnipeg.
“Whatever we’ve done in the last two months to get ourselves ready for this, it helps — just like the outstanding season that they’ve had for 82 games helps them prepare for the playoffs,” coach Jim Montgomery said. “But it’s a different animal. It’s like going from civilization to the wild, wild West. It’s completely different.”
It’s true that the odds were stacked against the Blues even being here. They lost 13 of their first 22 games before longtime general manager Doug Armstrong jumped at the chance to hire Montgomery fresh off his firing in Boston, dismissing Drew Bannister less than a quarter of the way through his first season as the full-time coach.
Even as recently as the 4 Nations Face-Off break this past winter, they were eight points out of the West’s final playoff spot. With a combination of a locker room good-luck charm, strong defense and good goaltending, they leapfrogged three other teams to make it.
“We start playing for each other,” said forward Pavel Buchnevich, who was a point-a-game player during the late-season run. “All lines, everybody contribute. We become like a team.”
St. Louis allowed 2.31 goals a game over the last 26 games. Impressive until realizing the Jets allowed 2.15 a game during that same stretch and were the stingiest team in the league all season, defending well and getting elite goaltending from MVP candidate Connor Hellebuyck.
“They don’t give up much,” Schenn said. “They’re a good defensive hockey team with a good goalie.”
So are the Blues, with goalie Jordan Binnington known for coming through in big games. He backstopped them to the Stanley Cup in 2019 and helped Canada win the 4 Nations by beating the U.S. in the final.
‘Scared of us’
Schenn concedes most people didn’t give the Blues a chance. But their 15-game winning streak from March 15-April 5 put the rest of the league on notice.
“I feel like some teams are scared of us,” Buchnevich. “It’s a good sign we’re a good team.”
The scariest part about the Blues is how much they’ve improved under Montgomery, the 2023 Jack Adams Award winner as coach of the year when he and the Bruins set NHL records for wins and points in a season.
“As soon as I coached the first game against the Rangers (in November), I saw how much depth of talent was here,” Montgomery said. “And I thought if we can get to the right places, in our habits and our game management, that we would be able to do this.”
Young players have been a big part of the equation, but so have the five remaining players from the 2019 Cup run: Schenn, Binnington, defenseman Colton Parayko and forwards Robert Thomas and Oskar Sundqvist.
“That’s something that we can lean on quite a bit: guys that have been there, have been to the very top in this game and have played under that kind of pressure,” said defenseman Cam Fowler, who joined in a December trade from Anaheim. “We still have them here in this locker room and help leading us, so that makes a huge difference.”
Winning-peg
The Jets won the Presidents’ Trophy for the most points in the regular season, and there’s reason to believe from Hellebuyck to 41-goal-scorer Kyle Connor and beyond that they can make a deep run.
Winnipeg lost in the first round each of the past two years and has not been to the West final since 2018. First-year coach Scott Arniel believes his team is better positioned this time around, brushing off past playoff exits.
“We’re a big, heavy team: It’s amazing how many coaches say to me, ‘I can’t believe how big you guys are,’” Arniel said. “The games aren’t fancy and wide open in the playoffs, they’re tight and they’re heavy and we like to feel that we’re built for that.”
Finishing atop the league means home-ice advantage the rest of the way. The Jets have one of the smallest arenas in the league, but playoff games in the provincial capital of Manitoba are known for old-school “whiteouts” and plenty of noise.
“Our crowd is insane,” Hellebuyck said. “I think the second we step on the ice, we’ve got it. We got that home ice advantage. I know our crowd’s going to bring it.”
The Jets halted the Blues’ franchise-record 12-game winning streak on April 7 with a 3-1 victory in Winnipeg. The Jets won the season series 3-1, including two victories in St. Louis.
Schenn vs. Schenn
Brayden is facing brother Luke Schenn in a playoff series for the first time, and he’s not sure how the family will handle it.
“I don’t even know how to describe it,” Brayden said. “We’re both physical guys, and we both play physical in the playoffs, so anything can happen and we might get some screaming by mom and dad at us if we go too hard.”
There was buzz before the trade deadline about contenders looking to acquire the Schenn brothers in separate deals. Luke, who started the season with Nashville, was traded to Pittsburgh and then to Winnipeg, making this possible.
“It was a bit of a crazy deadline,” Luke said. “I was cheering for him down the stretch, realizing it could be a possibility of playing against one another. Not that we were necessarily hoping for that, but it’s worked out that way. And it’s going to be game on.”
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