St. Louis Blues Top 10 Moments Of 2019 Stanley Cup Final

7. Binnington’s save on Marchand in Game 7

Jordan Binnington was so on during Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final that it might have been possible to make a Top 10 list of his saves alone. I’m sure there are plenty of fans that would have been into that, but we did not go that route.

That said, Binnington was there when the game was still hanging on the edge of the knife blade. He was there for the team the entire 60 minutes, but this early stage was when things were the most nervy.

The Blues looked dangerously close to being overwhelmed by the moment in the early stages of the game. After a great initial burst by the Blues, the Bruins were coming and coming hard and fast.

About eight minutes into the period, the Blues were under siege and they took a rather foolish penalty, giving the league’s best playoff power play unit a shot to crack a scoreless game. It looked like they were about to too.

The Blues penalty kill had been solid for stretches toward the end of the series, but their defensive box got drown down too close to the net, allowing Brad Marchand into prime real estate. He fired a shot from the top of the slot with a seemingly open net and almost assured of a goal.

Binnington had other ideas. He stretched his body as far to the right as he could and that was enough.

In reality, his jersey made the save as much or more than he did as the puck got caught up in his armpit after deflecting off his chest pad. The bottom line was it stayed out of the net.

That was a huge game changer. Instead of Boston scoring the first goal of the game, firing up the crowd and setting things in motion in a completely different way than it played out, the Blues remained right in there and in a position to get those crushing goals just minutes later.

One small moment could have completely changed the way the entire game played out. Instead, the Blues stayed on even ground and answered with some haymakers.