The Boston Bruins have made their return to the Stanley Cup Final in a successful way. Last time they played in the Cup Final game, they gave up two late ones and lost Game 6 against the Chicago Blackhawks in 2013. This time around, they recovered from an early 2-0 deficit.
It wasn’t the start the Boston Bruins would have hoped for; the Stanley Cup Final started with both teams being a little bit nervous and But it was the St. Louis Blues who caught the Bruins yawning early as Brayden Schenn drew first blood.
Then in the second period, the Blues doubled their lead after David Pastrnak‘s blunder pass went right to a waiting Schenn and Vladimir Tarasenko buried it. But that lit a fire and the Bruins simply dominated the game as they put on a show as soon as they dropped that 2nd goal.
The Great
The best thing for the Boston Bruins wasn’t the fact that they won – it was that they didn’t grind out a win, they did it in a thrilling fashion. Marcus Johansson skated right through the Blues defense and rang the pipe. Brad Marchand nearly did the same late in the second period.
The Bruins were often criticised by how much they handle the puck instead of shooting it. This time around, they found the right combination of all that. Unexpected goalscorers secured the victory with their goals as the finesse guys put on a show to impress the fans watching this game around the globe.
The win gotten out of beautiful play is the nicest one. But the real nicest win will be the fourth win of this series for one of these teams. The Boston Bruins will have to be a little bit more efficient to go all the way through, but this was certainly a solid start to it.
The Good
All eyes were set on the goaltenders in this series. Jordan Binnington has been cool as it gets, on the other side Tuukka Rask is showing his best career goaltending. But in this instance, it wasn’t about the goaltending in Game 1.
Rask gave up two goals on the first three scoring opportunities the Blues had. Rask has done nothing outwardly bad to lay blame on him, but at the end of the day, he gave up two goals on 20 shots against him.
Not to be misunderstood, Rask was good, not perfect. The Boston Bruins will need a perfect version of him next time, this time they were the better team by far, not having to rely solely on their goaltender.
Binnington was solid early, but he was very angry at himself after giving up that second goal scored by Charlie McAvoy. Let’s rank goaltending as something good, not perfect in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final.
The Bad
Even though the Boston Bruins won Game 1 and out-shot the Blues 38-20, 18-3 in the second frame, there were plenty of things to improve on moving forward.
The team worked its ass out this time, but for the next game, it would be maybe a good idea not to turn the puck over so egregiously as David Pastrnak did in the second period to let his team go down by two goals. That the Bruins came back immediately to cut the lead at the half was a blessing, but they should have tied it that time.
The power play wasn’t good either. The Boston Bruins really didn’t do anything with either of their five man-advantage opportunities. Their only power-play tally came of an individual effort from Charlie McAvoy, with a little help from the stick of Alex Pietrangelo. On the other hand, the Bruins were 2-for-2 on the penalty kill.
The referees weren’t bad, but neither were they good. The Blues might complain about that missed call on Zdeno Chara’s slash on Tyler Bozak’s stick when the Blues tried to tie the game already on the power play late in the third period.
On the other hand, Jordan Binnington hit David Backes with his elbow without notice from the referees. Overall, nothing comparable to Timo Meier’s hand pass in overtime of Game 3 of the Western Conference Final, not even close to that.
The Stanley Cup Final has started and it was one heck of the game. Last time a home team recovering from a 2-0 deficit in Game 1 to win it was the Los Angeles Kings in 2014. The New York Rangers that time blew another deposit of two-goal leads in the following game. Let’s see what will be the script of Game 2 on Wednesday.
From the past seven Stanley Cup Finals, just once the team winning Game 1 failed to win the Cup – the Vegas Golden Knights last year. And don’t forget that the Blues lost Game 1 against the San Jose Sharks a round earlier and later on they went 4-1 with the only loss being that Game 3 controversial hand pass in overtime.
The omens are good, but the Boston Bruins will need to continue to bring it in Game 2.