Everything you need to know from the Bruins’ 4-2 win over the Blues in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final, with BSJ insight and analysis:
Box Score
TWO TAKEAWAYS
B’s dominate Blues after shaky opening stanza: After a brutal 10-day break, we can finally put an end to all of those lovely “rest vs. rust” discussions, right? Well, all of the worrying about Boston’s performance at puck drop kind of came to fruition in the first, as the B’s were awfully flat in the first 20 minutes of play.
Along with surrendering Brayden Schenn’s opening tally at 7:23 in the first period, the Bruins were constantly chasing the puck through the opening 20 — attempting just six shots through 11 minutes of 5v5 TOI. Things went from bad to worse in the first minute of the second period, when a horrid turnover by David Pastrnak led to a snipe from Vladimir Tarasenko to give the Blues a 2-0 lead.
But after that, the rust finally came off — and Boston dominated for the remainder of the night. After Tarasenko beat Tuukka Rask, the Bruins outshot the Blues by a 30-12 margin to close out the game — with Boston holding a 21-6 edge in attempts and a 12-2 advantage in 5v5 shots on goal for rest of the second period.
Boston wasn’t able to get much more breathing room after Sean Kuraly gave Boston its first lead of the night at 5:21 in the third, but this game very well could have been even more lopsided had Boston been able to cash in on more than one of its five power-play opportunities.
If Bergeron Line gets going, this Bruins team might be unstoppable: Another night, another B’s playoff win in which contributors across the lineup made their mark for a club that’s now won eight straight games this postseason. Every skater except for Matt Grzelcyk recorded a shot on goal in the victory, while a pair of defensemen in Charlie McAvoy and Connor Clifton helped orchestrate Boston’s rally with tallies against Jordan Binnington at 2:16 and 12:41 in the second.
Add in the go-ahead goal from Kuraly in the third and an excellent night from Marcus Johansson (plus-3 shot differential at 5v5 play, multiple successful zone exits and entries), and the Blues — like the Hurricanes before them — simply had too many fires to put out on the night when it comes to accounting for whatever Bruce Cassidy threw at them.
(Aside from their tallies, the Blues didn’t generate much of anything in the slot during Monday’s matchup).
It has to be a disheartening result for St. Louis, who managed to tally a pair of 5v5 goals against the “Perfection Line” of Patrice Bergeron, David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand in a little over four minutes of TOI to open the night. Even with the Bergeron line struggling to gain some traction against Schenn’s line, Boston’s secondary scoring once again proved to be enough to rally back for the win.
Another character win for the Bruins — and once the Bergeron line gets back up to speed, watch out. This series could be over in short order.
FIVE UP
Marcus Johansson: He did not factor into the scoring on a night in which seven different players tallied at least a point, but Johansson was huge when it came to keeping the Blues out of Boston’s zone, joining McAvoy as one-man breakouts during the stretches in which the B’s were starting to get hemmed into their zone.
Krejci Line: Lost in the shuffle of Monday’s win was the steady play of Boston’s second line of David Krejci, David Backes and Jake DeBrusk. During 8:01 of 5v5 TOI in which that line was out on the ice, the Blues only attempted two shots on goal, both of which did not even get to Rask.
Connor Clifton: Cliffy Hockey just won’t stop. Along with opening the scoring for the Bruins a little over two minutes into the second period, the rookie defenseman made his presence felt across the ice — intercepting a clearing attempt in the third period and starting the sequence that led to Kuray’s game-winning strike.
Sean Kuraly: The lone player for the B’s that finished with multiple points on the night, Kuraly was once again the engine that drove an effective fourth line for the Bruins — carrying a puck out of the B’s zone and setting up Clifton’s goal in the second period before potting his own in the following stanza.
Switched on to defend the Schenn line for the final two periods of play, the Kuraly line limited the trio of Schenn, Jaden Schwartz and Tarasenko to zero high-danger scoring chances, while generating a pair of their own against Binnington.
The Kura-leap is back. pic.twitter.com/DrG6KtT8hh
— Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) May 28, 2019
"Fine, I'll do it myself."
- Charlie McAvoy pic.twitter.com/s9JtoQNW8D
— Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) May 28, 2019
David Pastrnak. Wooooof. pic.twitter.com/L6xgpdrlfT
— Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) May 28, 2019
Chara blocked a shot with his wrist and it cut open immediately, started bleeding pic.twitter.com/K7UjAffKtd
— CJ Fogler (@cjzero) May 28, 2019
Torey Krug lights up Robert Thomas. pic.twitter.com/0U3cp1m60T
— Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) May 28, 2019
The 2011 Bruins are here and TD Garden is already going bananas. pic.twitter.com/8QhhcDkw88
— Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) May 28, 2019
Chris Wagner fires up TD Garden. pic.twitter.com/cHYc3KOD4e
— Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) May 28, 2019