If you were to step inside TD Garden this fall, you’d be hard-pressed to find any visual evidence at what transpired in this barn just four months ago.
A Bruins’ opening highlight film filled with dazzling dekes and bone-crunching checks had a few glaring omissions — a ticked-off Torey Krug (sans helmet) barreling over Robert Thomas, a raucous Garden crowd awarding Zdeno Chara with a standing ovation just minutes before playing Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final with a broken jaw....
None of it to be seen. Even the Bruins’ former locker room is no more.
The final time the B’s crowded that space, it was June 12, 2019. Jake DeBrusk buried his head in his hands, sobbing. Zdeno Chara stared ahead at his stall, his gaze glazed over after Boston came up just three periods short of hockey’s ultimate prize.
The spot in which the Bruins’ 2018-19 campaign came to a crushing end was uprooted to make space for a new locker room — with the pain felt on that muggy June night buried under new slabs of concrete and steelwork.
Boston’s new digs are fitting, as the 2019-20 Bruins have buried just about any talk involving the Blues in the months following their Game 7 defeat at the hands of the reigning Cup champions.
A battle-hardened roster followed the same ol’ cliched script this week, turning aside all of the buzz that came with what was going to be the Blues’ big return to Causeway Street on Saturday night.
“It’s just another game,” Brad Marchand said on Friday afternoon. “It doesn’t change anything that’s happened in the past, we’re not going to get any retribution by winning the game tomorrow. At the end of the day, it’s two points. I’m sure the fans are excited. I think it will mean more to them than us, but again it’s two points, so that’s what we’ve got to worry about.”
Torey Krug didn’t even know St. Louis was coming to town, or so he said.
‘I just think it’s another game, to be honest,” the B’s blueliner said. “I didn’t even know they were on the schedule until after we played Toronto on Tuesday. I guess that speaks for itself.”
For a locker room teeming with veterans, Saturday’s matchup was just one of 82 games on the slate.
And then the puck was dropped on the Garden ice.
Just 38 seconds into the game, a pedestrian regular-season tilt felt more like a heavyweight bout in June — as Zdeno Chara drilled Blues winger Oskar Sundqvist with a crushing hit. It was a collision four months in the making, as the Swedish forward was the one responsible for concussing Matt Grzelcyk during Game 2 of the Cup Final.
“We knew that there would be some heightened emotions coming into the game," Grzelcyk said of Chara's hit. "But for him to start the game like that, it certainly gives the team a spark and set the tone for the rest of the game and got us alive on the bench.”
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It was just the start of an eventful 20 minutes in which the Bruins and Blues — reunited at last — traded punches back in the ring.
Less than six minutes later, Torey Krug and David Perron were both sent to the sin bin after getting into a kerfuffle. Connor Clifton dropped Sammy Blais with a counter hit. Ivan Barbashev — suspended last June for a high hit on Marcus Johansson — cracked Anders Bjork against the glass. By the end of regulation, both clubs had racked up 24 penalty minutes — with plenty more infractions failing to get called by the on-ice officials.
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"Felt like we were back in the playoffs," Cassidy said. "Good, solid, clean hits and I think as the game went on, it became your typical hockey game."
I'd be one thing if a mighty pissed Bruins team left the Blues battered and bruised for their flight over to Detroit Saturday night. But along with connecting on a couple of haymakers, the B's trounced the Blues in just about every other area of the ice — building on their strong start with a 3-0 victory over St. Louis.
"We got the lead, started well, had some good looks early, kept them out of our end, didn’t give up much, and that’s important with St. Louis," Cassidy said. "I think if you can force them to chase the game a little bit, you’re much better off. That’s a general statement, but most teams will play better with the lead, but some teams are really good with the lead, and I think we’re one of them. I think St. Louis is that type of teams that’s just built to play better with the lead than to have to come from behind."
For as much as the Blues bullied the B's throughout their seven-game showdown, St. Louis struggled to generate much of anything against Tuukka Rask in net — with the Blues unable to attempt a single shot on goal within 30 feet of Rask on the night.
A fifth-ranked St. Louis power play (25.8% success rate) didn't have much luck either. While the big guns like David Pastrnak beat Jordan Binnington down one end of the sheet, the B's other role players formed a wall around Rask — with Chris Wagner denying a power-play point shot from Alex Pietrangelo with a painful block.
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Even when St. Louis tried to flex their muscles, Boston countered with a kidney punch. As Connor Clifton absorbed a hit into the boards from a pair of Blues skaters, Boston took advantage of a pinched St. Louis defense and skated in a 3-on-2 rush — culminating in Anders Bjork rifling a puck off the bar and down into the net to give Boston a 2-0 lead in the second.
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“You can kind of use it to your advantage," Grzelcyk said of St. Louis' aggressiveness. "If they’re spending energy coming up the ice, looking to finish their check, then you’re hopefully clean coming out of your own zone. Usually, you have the jump on them going the other way. As long as you use your smarts getting out of there quick, I think you can use it to your advantage."
In the end, two points on the board does not absorb the pain that comes from letting a Stanley Cup slip through your grasp. And the Bruins are well aware of that.
"Unless they brought the Cup here for this game, I don't think it has anything to do with it," Rask said when asked if Saturday meant anything more for this club.
A 3-0 victory on Saturday can't rewrite the previous four months of misery. But that doesn't mean this B's team can't relish a night in which they dealt the Blues an ugly black eye.
I don't know, maybe I'm stretching here.
After all, it was just another game, right?