Bedard: Bruins have to live knowing they didn't play their best, and that will be tough to deal with

Brad Marchand had tears streaming down his face as the final horn sounded on the Bruins' 2018-19 campaign. Inside the locker room, he was still filled with emotion and could barely muster words to describe Boston's Game 7 loss.

Jake DeBrusk, all of 22 years old, was still in his full uniform at his locker some 25 minutes after the game. His head was in his hands. He sobbed at times.

Charlie McAvoy, who just days ago talked about how the emotions of the Stanley Cup Final were a lot to deal with as a 21-year-old, was at an almost total loss for words in the aftermath.

The emotions you encounter in a professional locker room after a championship game loss are always strong. Doesn't matter if it's at a Super Bowl, World Series, NBA Finals or, in this case, the Stanley Cup Final.

But this was a bit different. There were a lot of 40-yard stares. There weren't a lot of answers. Stunned and shocked would be apt descriptive terms for the reaction in the Bruins' locker room.

And it's only going to get worse in the immediate aftermath. For as well as the Bruins played all season and, largely, during the entire postseason run, they set off into the shortest of offseasons with one devastating thought in the aftermath of their 4-1 Stanley Cup Game 7 loss on home ice to the St. Louis Blues: the Bruins' season ended in a game in which they did not come close to playing their best hockey.

That will be tough to live with, especially for the five veterans who might have seen their best chance at hoisting the Cup for the second time — Zdeno Chara, Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci, Marchand and Tuukka Rask — flash in front of their eyes and burn out forever.

The magnificent Bruce Cassidy, who has an uncanny ability to cut through all sorts of noise and get to the heart of the matter, saw it as well.

"They outplayed us at certain moments of the game at all positions and that's why they won," Cassidy said. "I don't think anybody is leaving the building, unfortunately, in our locker room saying they put their best foot forward ... and that's the whole group. We didn't get it done at every position, coaching staff, whatever ... They ended up being better than us and did what they had to do to win. It's that simple."

Yes, it was that simple.

And here's the double dagger for many of the Bruins. In the end, this loss wasn't about Tuukka Rask getting outplayed by an outstanding Jordan Binnington — "We scored a goal with two minutes left ... I mean he could have stood on his head and given up one so...," said Cassidy — or about a small and young defensive group that had its share of challenging stretches during this season.

No, this final devastating blow was delivered because the Bruins' vaunted top-six forward group just could not produce enough without the aid of a power-play advantage. And even though they had the only power play of the game, they still couldn't break through.

It's amazing, really. For all the declarations about how this Bruins team would sink or swim in the postseason by how much production they got from guys not named Bergeron, Marchand and Pastrnak, that group's lack of output eventually did in the Bruins at the end.

"You work so hard to get to this point," said Bergeron. "You know, we ultimately didn’t capitalize on our chances and they did. You know, we've got to give them credit. They deserved to win."

In the end, the Perfection Line was outplayed by a bunch of castoffs and reclamation projects with names like Zach Sanford, Ryan O'Reilly (really a terrific player who labored too long in Buffalo) and David Perron. Pedigree players like DeBrusk, Krejci and David Backes (was so challenged he was booted up to press level by Karson Kuhlman) lost too many battles to Jaden Schwartz, Brayden Schenn, Vladimir Tarasenko and the brawling Blues collar poster boy, Pat Maroon.

Things had flipped so much for the Bruins at times during this Final that you found yourself buoyed when players like Marcus Johansson, Charlie Coyle, Sean Kuraly and Noel Acciari were on the ice, and concerned when Marchand, Pastrnak and DeBrusk were heading up ice, often to turn the puck over with a mishandle or pass to nowhere in particular.

"They’re a good team, but we should’ve scored in the first period," said Krejci. "We had chances, we didn’t score, they got … so, we should’ve scored but we didn’t. So, that’s what it comes down to."

If there was one sequence that will be remembered for this, ultimately, failed title run, it would have to be in the closing seconds of the first period. Marchand, who was attempting to change with less than 15 seconds remaining, had replaced a pinching defenseman on defense and allowed Schwartz to go around him unfettered, and then slowly headed off for a change. With the Bruins shorthanded, Alex Pietrangelo jumped into the play and scored with 7.9 seconds remaining.

https://twitter.com/NBCSBoston/status/1139020029889060869

"I don’t know, they chipped it in ... I thought that guy was by himself, so I went for a change, and a couple more guys jumped up on the play," said Marchand. "I didn’t see the replay, but yeah..."

Both coaches said that goal changed the game.

"We kind of missed an assignment and they made a play, a nice play by Pietrangelo but you’re probably a different game if it’s 1-0 coming out of the first, I do believe that," said Cassidy. "I’m not saying that we would have won or we would have lost, I’m not a mind reader. But I do believe that it gave them a lot of juice for a period that they, you know if they looked at it objectively, probably felt or should have felt that they got outplayed but they’re up 2-0 on the scoreboard and that’s all that matters."

"That’s a big goal. A big-time goal by him," said Craig Berube.

Fitting that Marchand, Bergeron and Pastrnak were all on the ice as that devastating play started towards the Bruins end of the ice.

As great as that group had been over the balance of the season, they just came up short too many times in this postseason — and Game 7 was a microcosm of that.

They, along with Krejci and DeBrusk, were outplayed by their Blues counterparts for the balance of the series in 5v5 situations.

That's why the Blues left TD Garden with the Stanley Cup.

And that's why the Bruins were so devastated watching it happen. And they'll have to carry that burden throughout the offseason and, if this was indeed the last and best shot at another Cup, the rest of their lives.

"You never know when you’ll get that chance again," said Marchand. "It could be the last one for all of us, but yeah, you know, when you’re that close, and it doesn’t happen, it hurts."