St. Louis strikes all the right notes
Glorious goaltending by Binnington secures team’s first title to finish unlikely turnaround
BOSTON — When their proximity to the inconceivable can be measured in months or years instead of mere days or weeks, the members of the St. Louis Blues will reflect upon one of the most extraordinary moments of not only their lives, or the team’s 52 years in the NHL, but also the two and a half centuries since a pair of fur traders settled their fair burg along the western banks of the Mississippi River.
Yet even with proper detachment, they might wonder whether this all wasn’t some icy mirage: Did the Blues, after ranking last in the 31-team league in early January, actually win the Stanley Cup?
Yes, the Blues won the Stanley Cup.
Never before Wednesday night
could that sentence be written, and so again: The Blues won the Stanley Cup.
After failing to clinch at home on Sunday, the Blues defeated the Boston Bruins 4-1 in Game 7 at TD Garden, muzzling a crowd raring to see yet another coronation in a city spoiled by championships.
Ryan O'Reilly scored for the fourth straight game and rookie Jordan Binnington stopped 32 shots to hold the Bruins at bay even while they controlled play in the first two periods.
Alex Pietrangelo added a goal and an assist and Brayden Schenn and Zach Sanford also scored for St. Louis.
In a first period the Bruins dominated, Binnington was the difference, launching himself from one post to the other to come up with 12 stops.
“Unbelievable first period,” Pietrangelo said of Binnington. “His confidence, his swagger, his belief in himself — unbelievable.”
Binnington’s heroics bought time for O’Reilly, who won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the postseason MVP, to deflect in the Blues’ first goal. Then, with seven seconds left in the first period, Pietrangelo took advantage of a poor line change by Boston’s Brad Marchand and beat goaltender Tuukka Rask with a backhand for a 2-0 lead off just four shots.
Schenn’s goal 11:25 into the third period silenced TD Garden save for the euphoric shrieks from the handful of St. Louis fans in the stands. The arena half-emptied with Sanford’s goal with less than five minutes left, the 4-0 score leaving little doubt of the outcome.
“You dream of this for so long,” O’Reilly said. “As a kid, that feeling comes back to you of just what it means to win this thing. I still can't believe this. I can't believe I'm here right now and a Stanley Cup champion with this group of guys.”
O'Reilly is the first player since Wayne Gretzky (1985) to score in four consecutive Stanley Cup Final games.
“The guy was a beast all playoffs,” Schenn said. “He deserves it. He's a hell of a player. Binnington's a beast. What a team to be a part of.”
Had anyone outside the Blues’ locker room scanned the standings on Jan. 3 — four days before Binnington made his first NHL start — and predicted the team would be hoisting the Cup five months later, that person would have been greeted with laughter.
No team before these Blues had gone from last place in the NHL after its 20th game to winning the Cup in the same season, and St. Louis — on the morning of Jan. 3, after 37 games, or 45 percent of its schedule — was the worst of the worst.
But they cultivated a resilience that propelled them to an 11-game winning streak, to the most points in the league after Jan. 1 and through four grueling playoff series, each tied after four games.
“Once we pulled it together, we were tough to beat,” said coach Craig Berube, who took over for Mike Yeo on Nov. 19.
The Bruins, meanwhile, ended up losing their last three home games.
“It's hard to find words,” 42-year-old captain Zdeno Chara said, fighting back tears and still healing from a badly injured jaw. “It's not easy. I'm sure everyone pictured it differently and we believed that it was there for us. That's sports. You've got to kind of take those and move on.”