The St. Louis Blues were in the midst of an intense battle against the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup Final six years ago. After splitting the first two games in Boston thanks to a Carl Gunnarsson overtime winner in Game 2, the Bruins took back momentum with a blowout win in Game 3 to silence the St. Louis crowd.
But as they did so many times in that 2019 season, the Blues got back on the horse in their next game.
In a crucial Game 4 on June 3, 2019, the Blues got things going early on thanks to their top-line center.
Ryan O'Reilly scored just 43 seconds into the game to get the Enterprise Center bumping on a Monday night. The Bruins tied it up just over 12 minutes later, but it didn't take long for the Blues to get that goal back. Vladimir Tarasenko scored 2:16 later to give the Blues a 2-1 lead with assists from Alex Pietrangelo and Brayden Schenn.
St. Louis took that 2-1 lead into the first intermission and held it for the majority of the second period. However, with a chance to build a two-goal lead on a power play, the Blues allowed a shorthanded goal to Brandon Carlo to tie the game.
And it was a nerve-wracking second intermission as the teams were tied at two.
That 2-2 tie held until just after the midway point of the third period when O'Reilly struck with his fifth goal of the playoffs and second goal of the game for a 3-2 lead with 9:22 remaining. Brayden Schenn added an empty-net goal in the final 90 seconds to secure the 4-2 win for St. Louis.
The Blues took just two penalties in Game 4 and killed them both off after allowing four power-play goals in Game 3.
"We knew what we had to do tonight to be a better team," Craig Berube said after the win. "First of all, our discipline was a lot better, and second of all, just, we were relentless, I thought, tonight. We didn't stop for 60 minutes."
The Blues outshot the Bruins in each period -- 13-9 in the first, 12-10 in the second, and 13-4 in the third -- en route to a 38-23 SOG differential in the 4-2 win.