St. Louis Blues: 4 Reasons To Fear The Boston Bruins And 2 Why Not To

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BOSTON, MA – JANUARY 17: St. Louis Blues defenseman Jay Bouwmeester (19) looks for cover as the puck gets past him during a game between the Boston Bruins and the St. Louis Blues on January 17, 2019, at TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Fred Kfoury III/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) /

The St. Louis Blues have had a healthy amount of respect for each and every opponent they have faced in this playoff season. The same will be true when the puck drops against Boston, but they do not respect them too much and that is a good thing.

When the St. Louis Blues began the 2019 playoffs, most people did not give them a great chance to get out of the first round. Winnipeg was too strong, too fast and too experienced, having fallen just short of this stage last season. We know how that turned out.

Similar things were said about the Dallas Stars. There were reasons to worry about the green machine out of Big D. St. Louis gave them their due and, though it was tough, ended that series in seven.

Next, it was on to the San Jose Sharks. They had all the media on their side. It would have been the big story to have apparently lovable Joe Thornton face his former team in the final.

The Blues threw the wrench in that cog. By eliminating the Sharks in six games and looking strong doing it, the Blues punched their ticket to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in 49 years.

Now, for any who are old enough to remember it, the Blues seek revenge for that 1970 final loss to this very same Boston Bruins team.

Of course, the players cannot worry about history. None of them were born back then. Some of the player’s parents might not have been around back then, to put it in perspective.

St. Louis has plenty on their plate without the worry of history and a city on the edge of exploding from pent up frustration. The Bruins will fill their waking moments with dread, according to some pundits.

Regardless of that, the Blues do need to worry about the Bruins. They did not luck into 100-plus regular season points and a trip to the final.

With that, we look at the four reasons the Blues should fear, respectfully of course, the Bruins and three reasons why they don’t need to lose sleep.

Scoring

One of the biggest reasons you have to worry about the Bruins is scoring. Boston has a lot of scoring and it is spread out enough to make it more difficult to defend.

In the regular season, the Bruins had three 30-plus goal scorers. They had four players with 70-plus points.

The Bruins had a 100 point scorer who also had close to 100 penalty minutes. We will get to that guy later.

Brad Marchand

Speaking of 100 points and almost 100 penalty minutes, I give you Brad Marchand. Love him or hate him, and he deserves both, he is an enigma.

Marchand is a throwback to the early days of hockey. As much as we all laud player like Gordie Howe and Bobby Hull and players of that era for their skills, we forget how tough they were. They were just as willing to jam a stick down your throat as they were to score a goal. That’s closer to Marchand.

However, instead of being overtly physical like those famous names, he is much more cerebral. The guy has this way of getting under your skin in ways that are despicable but not enough over the line to get any kind of punishment from the league – most times anyway.

Marchand is constantly walking that tightrope. He doesn’t really care who is there, he just reacts sometimes.

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Now, I’m not saying he was trying to bite the official, but I’m not going to say it’s impossible he was about to. You can clearly see the linesman say “Hey!” right as the forearm goes between where the teeth would be.

What there is no doubt of is that Marchand has licked a player.

I don’t agree with that type of behavior and most of the league does not. It is hard to argue with the results, sadly.

Marchand is the kind of player that is better when you are engaged and he is engaged in that kind of stuff. He thrives on getting under people’s skin, but unlike most agitators, he has the skill to make you pay himself if you are foolish enough to take a penalty.

He’s got all the grit and guile and mouth of someone like Steve Ott, but he can score with the best in the entire NHL.

As Pat Maroon said, the Blues have to find a way to completely ignore him and his antics. He is so agitating that I’m not sure even the Dalai Lama could ignore him, but that is what the Blues do have to do.

Hopefully they can accomplish that and hopefully Maroon is correct that it will throw Marchand off his game to not have that power over opponents.

Tuukka Rask

In case it had not been made painfully evident by other publications, the St. Louis Blues are going to have trouble scoring against Boston. Not only are the Bruins a solid defensive team, but their goaltender is one of the hottest in the league right now.

Tuukka Rask currently leads the NHL playoffs in several categories. By no means is he unbeatable, but he has appeared to be just that of late.

Rask is the leader in shutouts with two thus far. That’s not incredibly high, but when you consider that’s two in 17 games, that’s a decent average.

Speaking of average, Rask leads the playoffs in goals against average. Rask is posting a minuscule 1.84 goals against.

You could chalk up his top-notch stats to good defense, right? Not so fast. Rask leads the playoffs in saves made heading into the final with 517. Just to put that in perspective, Jordan Binnington made 748 saves in the entire regular season.

Rask is also the leader in save percentage. Right now he has an unbelievable .942 save percentage. That basically means he is stopping 94% of the shots he faces.

The thing that is worrisome for the Blues about Rask is he has shown an ability to stop what the Blues have been good at. Rask is good at spotting shots through traffic, so getting the puck on goal from the point might not produce as much offense as it has with other goaltenders.

In the last round, the Blues were all but guaranteed a goal if they went high-glove. Finnish goaltenders, such as Rask, are notoriously good with their glove hand.

His rebound control has been pretty solid too. The Blues have a habit of being a one and done team, so if rebounds are not even available, that means even less offensive chances.

As hot as the Blues have been as a team is how hot Rask has been in net for the Bruins.

But as hopeless as it seems, Rask is not unbeatable. Things can change in a heartbeat in the playoffs.

Rask is definitely better than Martin Jones, but all we heard on a national scale was how good Jones was. The Blues lit him up.

Ben Bishop is one of the best in the league. The Blues managed to get pucks past him.

We also forget that Rask was losing favor in Bean Town. It might never have entered the head of the coach, but there were those in Boston that were considering keeping Jaroslav Halak in goal since he did such a good job filling in while Rask was out.

Rask only had a .912 save percentage in the regular season, so he can be beat. The Blues will need to do what they did against Bishop. St. Louis needs to bump Rask a little bit and get under his skin – within the rules of course. Rask has shown, unlike Binnington, he can get frustrated and show it openly. That will be key.

RALEIGH, NC – MAY 16: Zdeno Chara #33 of the Boston Bruins celebrates with teammates following Game Four of the Eastern Conference Third Round after defeating the Carolina Hurricanes during the 2019 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs on May 16, 2019 at PNC Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina. (Photo by Gregg Forwck/NHLI via Getty Images) /

Been There Before

The main knock against the Blues right now is they don’t have anyone on the team that has been there and done that. The only player with a championship to their name is Oskar Sundqvist and he really did not have anything to do with that Pittsburgh team.

This Boston team is the opposite. They have several players that were on their team in 2011 when they won the Stanley Cup.

Some of the best Bruins helped them win that championship. Marchand, Bergeron and Zdeno Chara all have rings.

What is more, and perhaps just as worrying, is this is not an old team. They have plenty of veterans, like the players listed and former Blues captain David Backes. However, almost everyone other than Backes and Chara is in the prime of their career.

Though they have been there before, Marchand and Bergeron are still in their early 30’s. If you removed Chara’s 41 years on this planet, the team’s median age would drop.

That combination of veterans who have gone through the wars and youthful energy and exuberance is what most champions are made of.

It’s a dangerous mix in Boston. Your best scorer is 30 years old and has seen it all in the playoffs. Their second best scorer is only 22 and is one of the up and coming stars in the NHL.

When the kids struggle, they have players they can lean on. The veterans can give advice about what the media attention is like and how best to pace yourself so you’re not burnt out after one game.

That kind of stuff gets overblown at times, but when there is just two teams left, it can be the difference.

Craig Berube

One of the biggest reasons the Blues do not have to sweat is their head coach. Craig Berube is quick to deflect any and all attention away from himself to his players, but he is a gigantic reason the Blues got where they are.

Berube has pushed all the right buttons. Even if he came close to waiting too long, he managed to make all the right changes.

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Just when it looked like the magic had run out for the team’s top line, he switched things up. Even though Brayden Schenn had played so well on the wing, Berube picked the right time to move him back to center and he’s had an impact.

Berube challenged Vladimir Tarasenko with a polite, but firm hand. Tarasenko responded instead of pouting. He’s got eight playoff goals and three goals and six points in his last four games.

Berube could sense his team losing a little steam. He inserted the hungry Sammy Blais back into the lineup. Instead of just slotting him in a fourth line role, he pushed him into the second line.

That gave worn down Sundqvist a break for the legs and a resurgence on the fourth line. It gave the second line a spark with Blais speed and willingness to throw the body.

Instead of just standing pat with the guys that finished the season, Berube has shown a willingness to make tweaks. He took Carl Gunnarsson out for Robert Bortuzzo and Bortuzzo scored a game winning goal.

While nobody ever blamed Binnington for any of the team’s losses, many fans thought Jake Allen should get a look just to shake off rust and give Binnington a mental break. What do we know. Berube never thought of pulling his goaltender and Binnington has managed to rebound every time.

None of this is to say Berube is the second coming of Scotty Bowman – far from it. However, Berube is the right fit for this team.

I fully believe Mike Yeo has good knowledge of the game and is a decent coach. He proved to be a terrible fit for this current group of Blues.

Conversely, Berube has been the absolute best fit for this current team. He brings all the authority and demand of Ken Hitchcock while maintaining a player first attitude, because he knows what it is like in that locker room.

The fact Berube was on a team that played in the final does not hurt either. He has formulated a game plan that has worked in every series and gotten this team to believe, which is one of the most powerful things in sports.

Ryan O’Reilly

There have been plenty of times this playoff season that we have wondered where Ryan O’Reilly had disappeared to. He has not been at his absolute best and been a ghost during some games.

Some wonder if he is nursing an injury, but he keeps coming out and saying he feels fantastic. The truth is his faceoff wins dropped off by quite a bit and he did not look like he had as much speed.

He won almost 57% of his draws in 2018-19. That has dropped to 48% in the playoffs.

Despite those dropoffs, he has managed to remain productive. O’Reilly is still second on the team in points with 14.

You would like more of those points to be goals since he only has three goals. As long as he is contributing to the offense, the team remains dangerous because he is so good at protecting the puck. O’Reilly is one of two or three players that you almost always trust to make the right decision on zone entries, which are so important this time of year.

Adding to his importance in this series is his history with Boston. O’Reilly has not lit the world on fire, but he has played very well in his personal history with Boston.

Most Blues do not see the Bruins other than two times a year. O’Reilly has 18 games played against the B’s and has six goals and 12 points, while playing almost 21 minutes per game. So, he knows what it takes to get points on the board and the effort it will take on the defensive side as well.

The only player with more experience against Boston is Tyler Bozak. He will be key too, having 20 career points against Boston.

Still, you need your best players to be at their best if you are going to win the ultimate prize. Having one of your best players having just come from the Eastern Conference and knowing how tough Boston is will give the Blues some experience to lean on.

SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA – MAY 19: Jaden Schwartz #17 of the St. Louis Blues celebrates with Colton Parayko #55, Vladimir Tarasenko #91, Ryan O’Reilly #90 and David Perron #57 after his second goal against the San Jose Sharks in Game Five of the Western Conference Final during the 2019 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at SAP Center on May 19, 2019 in San Jose, California. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images) /

Blues ARE That Good

The biggest thing so many national writers and analysts are forgetting is that the St. Louis Blues ARE that good. The same as the Bruins earned their spot in this championship round, so did St. Louis.

All we have read is that the Bruins are faster, meaner and tougher. I don’t see that anywhere or at least not it being the difference.

Winnipeg was faster and much bigger. That was not the difference in that series.

You could make the case that Dallas had more talent and the ability to be more physical. The Blues turned the tables on them.

San Jose certainly had more experience and more speed. A lot of their players were on the 2016 the beat the Blues in the Western Conference Final and played for a Stanley Cup. The Blues did not care and won that series.

The Blues won because they showed an amazing ability to stay on point in each game and stay focused on the task at hand. It is often something overlooked, but something as small as talking about focusing on the next round instead of focusing on playing for a Stanley Cup is a huge mental thing and shows they are not going to be overtaken by the moment.

That’s good coaching. That’s good ability by the players too.

For all this supposed dominance the Bruins supposedly have, they have done nothing better than the Blues. In fact, the Bruins have the exact number of goals scored as St. Louis.

St. Louis and Boston have each scored 57 goals in this year's playoffs (Blues have played two more games). How about this for a period-by-period breakdown …

Goals for:

1st period: 16-16
2nd period: 16-16
3rd period: 24-24
OT: 1-1
— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) May 24, 2019

The only difference is Boston played two fewer games. Taking nothing away from the opponents of the Bruins, but there is a reason they played two fewer games.

I fully admit to believing the Western Conference is tougher, both in travel and teams played. Even with that bias, I believe most people would take Winnipeg, Dallas and San Jose to win series over Toronto, Columbus and Carolina.

So, if the Blues went through the tougher road, would that not mean they have as good or better chance to win? Not based on most things I have read.

I would understand the idea of Boston winning a short series if they would make the case the Blues were worn down from playing so many tough games. Those arguments might exist, but not in the things I have seen. The idea seems to be just that Boston is that much better.

Where that comes from is beyond me. Boston swept the previous round, but were playing a talented team that was beset by injuries and getting by on will alone.

Boston is supposed to have this unbelievable offense. As shown, they have not scored any more than St. Louis and had fewer goals in the regular season.

Boston is good defensively, but only allowed eight fewer goals in the regular season than the Blues. Rask has been hot, but Binnington has only allowed six more goals than Rask and Binnington had to play in two extra games.

This series will be a lot tighter than some are giving it credit for. They are not giving the Blues enough credit either, as though this team was simply fortunate to get here and will be happy for the opportunity.

Next. Blues Story By The Numbers Could Be Coincidence Or Could Be Destiny. dark

No, I reject that. This team is that good. They might not have been the best in the regular season, but this team always had the potential to be one of the best in the league and they showed it.

They are that good. Now, they have seven games to show that to the world.

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