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2019 STANLEY CUP FINAL
BOSTON 4, ST. LOUIS 2 (BOS LEADS 1-0): The Boston Bruins rallied from a 2-0 deficit to score four unanswered goals to defeat the St. Louis Blues 4-2 in game one of the 2019 National Hockey League Stanley Cup Final Monday night at TD Garden in Boston.
The Bruins took a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven series and prevented the Blues from winning the franchise’s first-ever Stanley Cup Final game. St. Louis, appearing in its first final in 49 years, have now lost 13 games in a row, dating back to the team’s first appearance against the Montreal Canadiens in 1968.
St. Louis scored the first goal at 7:23 of the first period, when Brayden Schenn scored to give the Blues a 1-0 lead, which held until the end of the period. It was the first time in St. Louis history that the Blues had led at the end of a period in any Stanley Cup Finals game.
It quickly became 2-0 exactly one minute in the second period, when Schenn stole a pass deep in the Boston end and passed the puck out front to Vladimir Tarasenko, who first-timed it past Bruins goalie Tuuka Rask to extend the lead to 2-0.
After that, it was all Bruins, as they dominated the remainder of the game, forcing turnovers and taking advantage of St. Louis penalties that forced them into a special teams game that took away much of their energy. Boston pulled to within 2-1 at 2:16 of the second when Connor Clifton redirected a pass from Sean Kuraly up in the air and into the net past Blues goalie Jordan Binnington. Penalties finally caught up with the Blues, and at 12:41, Charlie McAvoy scored on the power play, his shot from the point deflecting off Alex Pietrangelo’s stick into the net to tie the game 2-2 after two periods.
The Bruins took the lead at 5:21 of the third period, when Kuraly got a pass from Noel Acciari after Binnington couldn’t handle a Zdeno Chara wrist shot and slid the puck home to give Boston its first lead of the series. Brad Marchand later added an empty-net goal at 18:11 for the 4-2 final.
The Bruins outshot St. Louis 18-3 in the second period, 30-12 in the last two periods and 38-20 for the game, Binnington made 34 saves, while Rask had 18 saves for Boston.
Game two of the series will be played Wednesday night in Boston, then the series shifts to St. Louis’ Enterprise Center for games three and four Saturday night and June 3, respectively. Game five is set for TD Garden on Thursday, June 6, with game six, if needed, Sunday, June 9 in St. Louis, and if a seventh and deciding game is needed, it’ll be in Boston on Wednesday, June 12. Face-off times for all games will be 7 p.m., with games two and three televised on NBCSN, while the remainder of the series will be broadcast on NBC and KSDK-TV locally in St. Louis.
