Bedard: There was rust for the Bruins, and then there was greatness

Everyone knew there was going to be some form of rust on these Boston Bruins. You can't go, basically, over a month of playing playoff-level NHL hockey every other day and then take a break for 10 days before playing in the Stanley Cup Final and expect to be in top form. It's just not going to happen.

The only questions, entering Game 1 against the St. Louis Blues, were how deep the rust was going to be, and how long would it take the Bruins to knock it off?

Well, it was there and it was probably worse than most thought. Patrice Bergeron's line — specifically Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak — looked completely lost into the second period. They were so bad that Bruce Cassidy had to scrap his well-laid plans to match them up against Brayden Schenn and the Blues' top line.

"Bergy's line had a tough time finding their games tonight," said Cassidy, "and other guys were a little bit ahead of them."

And when Pastrnak decided that it was a good idea to toss a no-look pass behind his own net — which was intercepted by Schenn, who found Vladimir Tarasenko in the slot for a goal to give St. Louis a 2-0 lead — the Bruins' worst fears were realized about the dreaded break.

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Consider that the Bruins' wakeup call.

Because after that point, the Bruins' full arsenal of greatness — their underrated team speed, an underlying toughness (hello, Torey Krug), deft skate and puck movement from their defensemen and a suffocating team defensive system — was on display in all its glory in delivering a 4-2 win by the Bruins, one that likely left the Blues dizzy and wondering if they can do anything from to prevent Boston from claiming their seventh Stanley Cup.

"They pressure you, they come hard, they're a quick team, they get on you, they have good sticks — they do a lot of good things," said Blues coach Craig Berube. "We've got to be better. They're going to continue to do that. That's the way they play. They're a good defensive hockey team ... But we've got to be better than that."

The final scoreboard may have read 4-2, but this felt like a 4-0 beatdown by the Bruins. The early deficit felt like a distant memory by the time it was over.

Sure, the Bruins haven't had the toughest road to this point. Everyone knows the teams that bowed out before Boston had a chance to face them. Toronto has never been able to compete with the Bruins, and the Blue Jackets and Hurricanes are far from NHL royalty. So it's been a little bit easy to .... not dismiss, but at least underrate how good the Bruins actually are.

And even though the Blues have been a bit of a Cinderella to this point, it's well past time to acknowledge that this Bruins team is borderline spectacular when you consider that Bergeron's line has been far from dominating and Tuukka Rask — the story of the Bruins' postseason run — barely had to break a sweat in Game 1.

These Bruins have won eight straight postseason games. That is no fluke, and it speaks to their unbelievable depth, and buy-in to Cassidy's system.

I mean, the Blues went from 7:18 remaining in the first period to 12:16 left in the second — a span of 15 minutes of playing time — putting just two shots on goal, and one was the Pastrnak's gift. Then they went from 8:16 of the second to 4:33 into the third — another 12-plus minutes between shots on goal.

Talk about throwing a blanket on an offense. Rask admitted he was trying anything to keep himself in the game in the later stages.

"I mean, only thing I can do is to just tell myself to stay focused and try to make that next save and give us a chance, keep us in the game," he said. "Luckily, I didn’t really have to do anything. We pushed back and got some goals out of that, so just pretty much a spectator after that."

It's the Stanley Cup Final and the goaltender is talking about being a spectator. If that doesn't tell you how much the Bruins were dialed in defensively, I can't help you.

"I think typically for most of the year we played good team defense so it starts with that, that’s our identity," said Cassidy. "And I think we just know how to check. I think we’ve done it to Carolina, Toronto, Columbus: we know how to play winning hockey when we need to and limit the other team's chances and that’s a credit to the veteran guys in the room."

We've already seen two teams win championships in this town recently (Red Sox, Patriots) on the strength of their defenses in the biggest games in the past year, and it looks like we're seeing another one follow the same formula.

But the one area where the Bruins seem to have their biggest advantage in this series — their speed up and down the roster — has to give the Blues a lot of pause going forward. St. Louis has a very good group of defensemen, and almost all of them are big and physically imposing. But once the Bruins got their legs under them, they were collectively shredding the vaunted Blues defense.

Time and time again the Bruins were able to create space and leverage on the Blues and if it wasn't for Jordan Binnington's excellent performance in net, this game would have been a blowout.

Marcus Johansson seemed to thread the Blues at will for much of the game, then players like Jake DeBrusk, Charlie Coyle and Sean Kuraly took turns getting to the edges of the St. Louis defense and creating havoc.

That's bad enough if you're a Blues fan. Then you watch Charlie McAvoy, Krug, Matt Grzelcyk and Connor Clifton racing up and down the ice and safely entering the zone ... it must feel like the Bruins were a Black & Gold wave that never stopped crashing.

Throw in the toughness that we saw in just the first game — from Krug getting his helmet knocked off and then knocking the block off Rob Thomas, to Zdeno Chara literally bleeding on the Garden ice — and you have the makings of a powerhouse.

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After Monday night, the Bruins have won eight straight postseason games and you wonder what it will take to slow them down at this point.

After a 10-day layoff didn't do the trick, it might be time to realize this Bruins team is just that good.