Stanley Cup: Boston Chases Binnington, Captures Game 3
With the return of Stanley Cup pageantry to St Louis after a nearly five-decade absence, the arena's tone seemed to steep itself into a fuzzy fondness for days gone by in Blues history.
Well, they definitely got it.
Those days, though, turned out to be October through December of 2018.
That's what St Louis looked like in the Stanley Cup final's Game 4, a 7-2 beatdown by Boston's Bruins who looked exactly like they have all season long.
Needless to say, the Bruins put that atrocity behind them and proceeded to become one of the NHL's best teams.
Game 4 showed how they did it.
They're the exact same things the Blues knew they had to neutralize, and on this night, they failed miserably:
- Boston went 4-for-4 with their killer power play, and
- Their super-potent first line accounted for lotsa points.
- Patrice Bergeron ... 1 goal, 2 assists
- David Pastrňák ... 1 goal
- Brad Marchand ... 1 assist
Hell, they coulda been saying that in front of the Blues' bench, and it wouldn't have made any difference.
Just as astronomers have a Goldilocks zone where they expect to find planets in our universe with conditions similar to that of Earth ...
-- these days, though, it'd be one that goes a pinch lighter on the carbon dioxide --
... it's beginning to look like St Louis has its own version related to their patented aggressiveness:
- Go too hot, and the Bruins will beat them with special teams,
- Go too light, and the Bruins will beat them even-strength, or
- Go fine-line between the two, and they've got a shot at another result like Game 2.
How fine a line?
That pretty much sums up the situation.
See for yourself what the Blues look like when going to hot. Not that Jordan Binnington didn't have a soft night or anything, but he coulda used more help than he got:
Binnington's done well in bouncing back from losses up to this point, and he's gotta know Boston's gonna pepper him in Game 4.
There are no secrets from here on out. The Bruins are a constant; it's the Blues who have to keep calibrating their game.
At this point, they'd better be right. Or else.