The fans of the St. Louis Blues once again sold out the Enterprise Center in Missouri on Monday night, hoping to see the teams first home Stanley Cup Finals victory ever. With the Boston Bruins blowing out the hometown Blues 7-2 in game three and taking a 2-1 series lead, game four became the key game in a run for the Cup. The fans would leave extremely happy as Ryan O’Reilly scored a pair of goals including the game winner, as St. Louis evened the series 2-2 with a 4-2 game four win. The win is just the Blues second Cup Finals victory of all-time and the first ever at home.
After getting in a first period 3-0 hole in game three, the home crowd was treated very early in this one. Vince Dunn took a point shot that was re-directed by Zach Stanford to the stick of O’Reilly behind the Boston net. O’Reilly wrapped it around the net underneath the left pad of Tuuka Rask 43 seconds in to make it 1-0. A red hot Charlie Coyle tied it up though for the Bruins at 13:14. Zdeno Chara took a shot from the edge of the faceoff dots at a bad angle to the right of Blues goalie Jordan Binnington. The goalie made the first save, but Coyle scooped up the rebound right in the slot and wrapped it in around the left leg of Binnington. It was the ninth goal of the playoffs for Coyle. The tie was short lived as St. Louis regained the lead 2:16 later. Vladimir Tarasenko picked up a rebound of a shot by Alex Pietrangelo right in the slot poking it past Rask at 15:30. It was the 11th playoff goal for the Russian born right winger, and that is the way the score would remain at the end of the first 20.
Both teams had some good chances in the first 14 minutes or so of the second period. Boston had a powerplay but St. Louis aggressively killed it off with no Bruins shots. O’Reilly had a partial breakaway shorthanded where he followed up his own shot and poked it under Rask that had the Boston goalie beaten, but the puck went just wide. The Blues had a three minute or so surge where the play was all in the Bruins end, eventually forcing a Boston penalty. On the ensuing powerplay though the visitors broke out on a 2 on 1 leading to a low slapshot by Patrice Bergeron from the right of the St. Louis goalie that was stopped. The rebound though was kicked out by Binnington to the stick of a wide open Brandon Carlo on the left who buried it shorthanded at 14:19 to even things 2-2. It was the first ever playoff goal for Carlo. The period ended still tied, with the Blues ahead 25-19 in shots on goal. Chara took a shot in the face during the early minutes of the second period, and finally returned to the bench in the third period with a full face mask. He did not return to the game getting just a total of 8:23 of ice time.
Both teams had a powerplay chance in the earlier stages of the third period, but neither team could convert. St. Louis got the game winner and the lead for the third time on the night just past the halfway point. O’Reilly poked home a rebound in the slot for his second goal of night. The goal at 10:38 came after a Pietrangelo shot wasn’t cleanly handled by Rask, allowing O’Reilly to slam home the loose puck into the back of the net. The Blues had a 2 on 1 break a little less than two minutes later to try to put it away, but Pat Maroon was stopped in close by Rask. Boston would pull their goalie for the extra attacker with 1:43 left and never got anything set up to work for the equalizer, and Brayden Schenn capped off the win with an empty netter with 1:29 remaining. The Finals now come down to a best of three series, as the scene shifts back to Boston for game five.
O’Reilly, Pietrangelo, and Schenn all had two points each in the victory. Binnington bounced back from being pulled in Saturdays game three loss after allowing four goals on 19 shots, by stopping 21 of 23 Bruins shots on Monday night. Rask made 34 saves on 37 shots in the defeat, as Boston had their five game road playoff win streak snapped. Neither team scored a powerplay goal as Boston was 0-2, and St. Louis was 0-3. The Bruins last road loss in these playoffs was a game three defeat to Columbus in the second round on April 30.
Game five from TD Garden in Boston is Thursday night with faceoff slated for 8 p.m.
