The Boston Bruins were on the verge of celebrating the third major sports championship in the city in the past eight months on Wednesday with the fans at the TD Garden. Unfortunately for them and the fans that packed the sold out building, it wasn’t meant to be. Jordan Binnington made 32 saves, and Alex Pietrangelo scored what turned out to be a game winner late in the first period as the St. Louis Blues won their first Stanley Cup in franchise history with a 4-1 win in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.
Boston actually dominated action pretty much throughout with the shots on goal on Binnington, including a 12-4 total in the first period but couldn’t solve the netminder. The Bruins had the lone powerplay of the game when Colton Parayko was called for delay of game at 7:57 of the first. Boston couldn’t convert however. The Blues would open up the scoring when Sammy Blais kept the puck in the Bruins zone knocking down a clearing pass. The puck eventually would find Jay Bouwmeester at the point. Bouwmeesters shot was deflected in the high slot by Ryan O’Reilly, and past Boston goalie Tuuka Rask at 16:57 to make it 1-0. Pietrangelos game winner came with a little less than eight seconds left in the opening 20. Jaden Schwartz made a move around Brad Marchand at the Bruins blue line to get some space, and dropped one to Pietrangelo who walked into the slot and backhanded a shot over Rasks blocker to make it 2-0.
Boston continued to press to try to get something in the middle period to spark them back into the game. They again outshot St. Louis 11-6, but neither team got on the scoreboard and the Blues would continue to carry the 2-0 advantage to the third period. The Bruins best chance came with just under 12 minutes left and still trailing by a pair. Noel Acciari shot one at net that Binnington stopped by lost control of the rebound. Joaquim Nordstrom kicked the rebound with his feet to his stick right in front of the net alone with the goalie, and tried to wrap it in from right to left but Binnington somehow spectacularly stopped it with his right pad. The Blues put it away about four minutes later. Vladimir Tarasenko won the race to a loose puck down the left wing boards, and centered a pass to Brayden Schenn who one timed the pass in the slot past Rask on the glove side at 11:25 to make it 3-0. For good measure at 15:22, David Perron cut to the net and went forehand then backhanded a pass to Zach Stanford at the side of the net for a one time tap in goal. It was Stanfords first of the playoffs. Matt Grzelcyk scored a goal getting the Bruins on the board at 17:50, after most of the capacity crowd had departed. David Krejci found Grzelcyk at the faceoff circles to the right of Binnington, and the shot by the defenseman rang in off the crossbar to the blocker side.
O’Reilly and Pietrangelo both had a goal and an assist to lead St. Louis to the win. Schwartz added two assists. O’Reilly took home the Conn Smythe Trophy for Most Valuable Player of the Finals. The Blues entered this years final series with an 0-12 record in Stanley Cup Finals games. They finish the season with a 4-15 mark, but will now be bringing a trophy back to the city for the first time in their 52 year history. Rask ended with 16 saves. He allowed four goals for the first time since April 17 when he allowed four against Toronto in the first round series, breaking a 19 game streak of allowing three goals or less. The goaltender had also been 5-0 in elimination/closeout games this 2019 playoffs until Wednesday night. Binnington, who only played one NHL game prior to getting the full time goalie position on December 16, becomes the first rookie goaltender to win 16 games in a single NHL postseason. St. Louis also becomes the first team to win a championship when being in last place at some point in a regular season in the NHL with a minimum of 30 games played. On January 3, the Blues were in last place in the league at 16-18-4. The team had fired their head coach Mike Yeo on November 20 after a disappointing start, replacing him with Craig Berube on an interim basis. Berube ends up going 38-19-6 the remainder of the regular season, and then 16-10 in the playoffs to lead the franchise to their first title and most likely locks him into a long term head coaching contract with the team.
Boston finished with a final season record of 64-33, that includes the playoffs. The Bruins have plenty of talent coming back and will be expected to contend again in 2019-2020 in the Eastern Conference. The team also went 8-3 on the road this postseason, but a very disappointing 7-6 at home at the TD Garden.
