St. Louis Blues v. Boston Bruins
Game Recap:
The time has finally come for the Stanley Cup Final to begin and with both the Boston Bruins and St. Louis Blues getting some time to lick their wounds from the past three rounds, are ready to play for the holy grail itself. To start the game both teams would get physical right out of the gate that would also feature two really good scoring opportunities for the Bruins. However, it would be the Blues after a failed powerplay that would score the first goal of the Final as Brayden Schenn would take advantage of the Blues aggressive play and wrist the puck past Tuukka Rask to make it 1-0 for the Blues. The Blues would give the Bruins two powerplay opportunities which saw Marcus Johansson come close to tying the game, only to hit the post instead. The Blues are doing a good job of breaking out of their zone and entering into the Bruins zone, while on the other side of the coin, the Bruins have been doing a good job of creating odd man rushes and creating scoring chances off of them.
Heading into the second Schenn would strike again this time intercepting a poorly made pass by Charlie McAvoy, and then passing it to Vladimir Tarasenko in the slot to score his 9th of the playoffs and a 2-0 lead exactly one minute into the period. However, the Bruins would respond as Sean Kuraly would throw the puck to the net and Connor Clifton would deflect the puck into the open net to cut the deficit to one. Later in the period the Blues would shoot themselves in the foot as they gave the Bruins two more powerplay opportunities, and the second one was really dumb penalty that Oskar Sundqvist took that leads to McAvoy taking the puck in from the neutral zone and wristing it past Jordan Binnington to tie the game at two. The Blues looked sloppy and undisciplined, while the Bruins looked like they were a well oiled machine outshooting the Blues 18-3.
In the third period the Bruins would continue with their dominating play, and a little over five minutes into the period it would be Sean Kuraly tucking the puck past Binnington to give the Bruins their first lead of the game at 3-2. Then with the goalie pulled late in the third, Brad Marchand would get the empty net goal to seal the deal and give the Bruins the 4-2 victory over the Blues to take the 1-0 series lead.
The Blues became very undisciplined after the first period and really got away from their game after Tarasenko scored to make it 2-0. The Bruins were able to take over the game after that point and really control the tempo and score four unanswered goals to take Game 1.
Lineups:
St. Louis Blues:
Jaden Schwartz — Brayden Schenn — Vladimir Tarasenko
Sammy Blais — Ryan O’Reilly — David Perron
Pat Maroon — Tyler Bozak — Robert Thomas
Ivan Barbashev — Oskar Sundqvist — Alexander Steen
Joel Edmundson — Alex Pietrangelo
Jay Bouwmeester — Colton Parayko
Carl Gunnarsson — Robert Bortuzzo
Jordan Binnington
Jake Allen
Scratched: Robby Fabbri, Michael Del Zotto, Zach Sanford, Mackenzie MacEachern, Chris Thorburn, Ville Husso
Injured: Vince Dunn (upper body)
Boston Bruins:
Brad Marchand — Patrice Bergeron — David Pastrnak
Jake DeBrusk — David Krejci — David Backes
Marcus Johansson — Charlie Coyle — Danton Heinen
Joakim Nordstrom — Sean Kuraly — Noel Acciari
Zdeno Chara — Charlie McAvoy
Torey Krug — Brandon Carlo
Matt Grzelcyk — Connor Clifton
Tuukka Rask
Jaroslav Halak
Scratched: John Moore, Steven Kampfer, Karson Kuhlman
Injured: Chris Wagner (upper body), Kevan Miller (lower body)
First Period:
Bruins Penalty – 3:37 – Sean Kuraly 2 minutes for Tripping
Blues Goal – 7:23 – Brayden Schenn (3) from Jaden Schwartz (5) and Jay Boumeester (6)
Blues Penalty – 13:15 – David Perron 2 minutes for Tripping
Blues Penalty – 17:45 – Robert Thomas 2 minutes for Hooking
End of 1st – STL – 1 BOS – 0
Shots 08 08
Faceoffs 08 06
Hits 12 11
PP 0/1 0/2
Second Period:
Blues Goal – 1:00 – Vladimir Tarasenko (9) from Brayden Schenn (6)
Bruins Goal – 2:16 – Connor Clifton (2) from Sean Kuraly (4) and Joakim Nordstrom (3)
Blues Penalty – 5:25 – Joel Edmundson 2 minutes for High Sticking
Blues Penalty – 11:04 – Oskar Sundqvist 2 minutes for Cross Checking
Bruins PPG – 12:41 – Charlie McAvoy (2) from unassisted
End of 2nd – STL – 2 BOS – 2
Shots 11 26
Faceoffs 19 17
Hits 21 21
PP 0/1 1/4
Third Period:
Bruins Goal – 5:21 – Sean Kuraly (3) from Noel Acciari (2) and Zdeno Chara (3)
Bruins Penalty – 6:55 – David Krejci 2 minutes for Illegal Check to the Head
Blues Penalty – 13:28 – Sammy Blais 2 minutes for Interference
Bruins ENG – 18:11 – Brad Marchand (8) from unassisted
End of 3rd – STL – 2 BOS – 4
Shots 19 38
Faceoffs 26 31
Hits 33 32
PP 0/2 1/5
Next Up:
Game 2 – BOS Leads 1-0
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