Bedard: St. Louis waited 49 years ... to fall flat on its face

Just imagine, for a second, that you're a St. Louis Blues fan.

Sure, there's been some nice hockey moments over the years — anything Brett Hull related, Craig Janney finally had a 100-point season in 1993 after being dealt from the Bruins, Brian Sutter was an excellent player, and there was even a President's Trophy in 2000 — but it had been 49 really long years since the Blues last hosted a Stanley Cup Final game before Saturday night.

And considering the Blues were coming off a confidence-building overtime victory at TD Garden in Game 2 that grabbed home-ice advantage from Boston, you'd have to imagine many a Blues fan had visions of a 3-1 lead going back to The Hub dancing in their heads.

So, yes, the home folks were a little geeked up ahead of the puck drop on Saturday night. And their Boys in Blue rewarded them with a stellar opening six minutes that saw them outshoot the Bruins 5-0. Red meat was fed to the faithful when Sammy Blais lit up former hero-now turncoat/villain David Backes. The Bruins even cooperated when Jake DeBrusk was sent to the box early on.

Here it comes. The Blues wave is going to wash over the Bruins. Time to take command of this series.

Then Tuukka Rask stopped four shots on the power play. And later in the period, David Perron was called for an unneeded interference penalty to put Boston's red-hot power play on the ice.

What is it about these Bruins that makes this and other, formerly disciplined teams, completely lose their minds? Somewhere, Carolina's Justin Williams was watching and saying, "I feel you, bro." It's like the opposition suddenly sees five Brad Marchands hopping the boards for every shift — I know ... that's enough to drive anyone to the looney bin.

Twenty-one seconds later, the Bruins had their first goal by Patrice Bergeron and he looked like someone had made fun of his kids, he was so intense.

“We’ve got to keep this thing 5-on-5," Blues captain Alex Pietrangelo said. "We gave them too many chances early on. Five-on-five we actually did a pretty good job, it’s just a matter of keeping them off that power play.

"It’s just a matter of moving our feet and not taking penalties. It’s as simple as that. I mean, I don’t see every call. We’ve just got to find a way to not take penalties.”

But the end of the period, they would add two more goals — and a total of four power play tallies on four shots — and the Blues fans, so full of hope and energy at one point, wished they hadn't spent gobs of money on tickets or listened to Gloria on repeat 147 times.

Bruins 7, Blues 2.

Ouch.

“I thought we started the way we wanted to," Blues center Ryan O'Reilly said. "I thought we had good jump and we were composed but once we had a couple breakdowns that’s when we started to fall apart. Then we got into penalty trouble. We got away from our game. We have to stay out of the box and find a way to wear them down. We stepped away from it too much and it gave them too much momentum.

"I think (the fans) deserved a better game. It’s disappointing and not what we wanted. But I think they’ve been patient all year for us and they’ll be with us the next game."

Now what for the Blues?

"Sometimes it’s not going to go your way," said goalie Jordan Binnington, who was bounced from the game. "It’s a long series. We’ve come this far. We have to regroup and come back at them for next game.

“I gotta be better. I gotta do a better job giving my team a chance to win. They scored three goals in the first. That’s never good. They’re a good hockey team. We have to get back to our game, stay focused.”

Let's be real here for a second. The Bruins are the better team, it's just a matter of if they play to that level. And these series are funny organisms. It feels like each team has had their too-big-for-their-britches moments.

The Bruins, after trailing 2-0 early in Game 1, dominated the Blues in scoring four unanswered goals. Between the scoring barrage, their speed and Torey Krug's Flying Wallendas routine, the feeling around Boston (and in this space, too) that this series would be lucky to go five games.

The Blues had to listen to all that for a day-plus around Boston, and then came out and bruised the Bruins (literally, with the Matt Grzelcyk hit), and absolutely suffocated the Bruins.

The Blues then came home, and heard all about how great they were after Game 2, and bought their own hype. And then got smacked around with their own press clippings as the Bergeron line, along with Zdeno Chara, roared like lions in winter.

In many ways, the series starts now.

“I think we’re confident we will tie the series up,” O’Reilly said. “That’s our mindset. We still have to talk about a few things, make the adjustments. But we’re a good team in here. It was a bad game by us. We didn’t do what we wanted, but we’re confident we can turn this thing around.”