Game 7 - Bruins v. Blues

Salem's Lot

Andy Moog! Andy God Damn Moog!
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If that’s a reference to the prostate cancer thread I started a few weeks ago, thank you and I don’t go back to him for about 5 months. So nothing to report. In the meantime, I’ve had no issues whatsoever in my recovery, thankfully, and resumed exercise this past week.

With that perspective, the suck of Wednesday night seems less significant. But I’m not always good at perspective.
I think he was referring to the reports that will inevitably come out today or tomorrow as to which players were playing through injuries that will require surgery in the offseason. Which is always a factor this late in the playoffs.

And I hope everything works out well for you on your situation.
 

TheoShmeo

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I think he was referring to the reports that will inevitably come out today or tomorrow as to which players were playing through injuries that will require surgery in the offseason. Which is always a factor this late in the playoffs.

And I hope everything works out well for you on your situation.
Right. Of course. Yep, it’s hard to believe that any of the first liners don’t need repairs.

And thanks.
 

kenneycb

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It’s almost like there’s a reason they only put sporadic pressure on Binnington. The Blues defense is exceptional.
That was the one area where they had a significant advantage over the B's and it came to roost at the most important time. As I have said several times, it really was Bruins 2011-esque, just the opposite.
 

PedroSpecialK

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It’s almost like there’s a reason they only put sporadic pressure on Binnington. The Blues defense is exceptional.
Yup - a lot of the reason the B's forwards looked so tepid at even strength, in addition to Parayko and Bouwmeester being absolute monsters in their own end, was the Blues' center play. O'Reilly gets a lot of the plaudits, but Sundqvist and (to a lesser extent) Schenn were similarly strong in their own end.

The B's goal explosions came when penalties were actually being called in this series. Once the penalties stopped, the B's became neutralized at even strength.
 

lexrageorge

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If that’s a reference to the prostate cancer thread I started a few weeks ago, thank you and I don’t go back to him for about 5 months. So nothing to report. In the meantime, I’ve had no issues whatsoever in my recovery, thankfully, and resumed exercise this past week.

With that perspective, the suck of Wednesday night seems less significant. But I’m not always good at perspective.
I honestly had no idea, so my apologies. Best of luck on your recovery, as I'm sure you'll beat it handily.

As @Salem's Lot noted, I was referring to the inevitable laundry list of undisclosed injuries that always come out after the Bruins are finished with their playoff run. I wouldn't doubt that at least a couple of Bruins players were playing through something that would have nearly all of us limited to rest, ice, and elevation. Same goes with the Blues players, so I'm not using injuries as an excuse. Just the injury report sometimes explain something we've been noticing that goes beyond the increasingly tired and lazy, Felger/Mazz-ian "player so-and-so is soft and never shows up in these situations" takes.
 

bosockboy

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And the Bruins scored 12 goals in their two prior wins against that exceptional D. (Yep, two empty nets).

It’s almost never binary. Saying the Bs were not at their best — which is unquestionably true — does not perforce mean the Blues has nothing to do with that.
Don’t want to go that deep on this, but both those games the Blues were down a player to suspension, both of which are critical pieces to their penalty kill. At full strength personnel wise the Blues won 4 of 5 and led 2-0 in the other. The power play and the suspensions made it a competitive 7 game series but the Blues outplayed them.
 

Haunted

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Theo. Be well amigo. I totally missed that thread and hope for the best for you.

2019 really stinks.
 

Dummy Hoy

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Funny, I agree violently with those bolded sentences and the relationship between them.

That, to me, adds up to the Bruins not playing particularly well, especially under the circumstances.

I don’t see that as a reactionary take in any way.
Well, saying Malden High (Currently co-oping with Revere) would have been better than the "tepid Bs" seemed a bit reactionary. But again, don't take it personal, I was just annoyed at reading things like that or worse for a while.

Glad your health is well.
 

Silverdude2167

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Don’t want to go that deep on this, but both those games the Blues were down a player to suspension, both of which are critical pieces to their penalty kill. At full strength personnel wise the Blues won 4 of 5 and led 2-0 in the other. The power play and the suspensions made it a competitive 7 game series but the Blues outplayed them.
You're going to go down this path again?

Only the Blues were at full strength for those 5 games, the Bruins were for 3 of them and you could contend that the Bruins outplayed the Blues in those 3 games.
 

kenneycb

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Can we just compromise and say it was a fairly evenly played series where one team seemed to outplay the other, for whatever reason, across each game?
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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The biggest play that swung the series in the Blues' favor was the head shot on Gryz. They won that game because he was out, and it led Berube to complain about penalties, which led to the Game 5 reffing disaster.

The NHL decided to make Berube head of officiating in the middle of the series and it killed us.
 

RIFan

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Perhaps I'm delusional, or perhaps you don't really know hockey maybe. That was an outstanding performance by St. Louis and that's why the Bruins lost, not because of their faults (while there were some, no doubt).

But I'm just being kind of a salty dick because as the playoffs have gone on this forum has become filled with a lot more nonsense as the number of contributors has increased. A lot of folks who appreciate the sport and have enjoyed this playoff run have come on board and that's awesome. The reactionary shit and shallow analysis of the game has been a lot more prevalent, and that's annoying. So don't take it personal- you, and many other people, have had bad takes around here recently.

I don't know though- I don't really know your work as a poster, we tend to run in different circles. Maybe you're quite knowledgeable about hockey and I miss it or we just haven't discussed the game enough. All I do know is what I saw on Wednesday night, and that was confirmed by many other people I know who really understand the game.
I endorse this post 100%. Once they got behind it was an extreme uphill battery. StL played very well and definitely benefited from the whistles being swallowed. With the lead, STL could pack it in tight and really control the front of the net really without any repercussions. It was game 7 and that was to be expected so I'm not laying it at the feet of the refs saying the B's got screwed. It's just reality. The trip on McAvoy and a lot of stick work that in a regular season game leads to a few penalties and quite possibly a different outcome.

Anyone who wants to throw out that the Bruins lacked heart or didn't show effort can get bent. If that's the prism you see the game through then the perhaps the actual competition doesn't really matter to you and only the outcome. Hockey might not be for someone if they see it that way. They got beat, it happens.
 

veritas

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I don't understand why people watch sports if they think only 1 team is good and the other 31 teams suck and didn't try hard enough. And that's basically what a lot of people are saying. It's fucking insane.
 

TheoShmeo

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The level of overreaction to a comment in a game thread the day after a disappointing loss is profound. I know the pile on urge is great and it’s fun to marginalize. But holy shit, saying the Bruins didn’t play particularly well on Wednesday night shouldn’t be controversial and should not imply that there’s no understanding that the Blues played well.
 

Mueller's Twin Grannies

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O'Reilly was playing with a cracked rib and managed to score 5 goals and win the Conn Smythe.

If Marchand's hand was injured, that sucks, but I would have to think going out and playing such a physical game with a cracked rib would be so much harder. And that's not a celebration of ROR, just saying that the Bruins weren't the only team with injuries so it's not entirely fair to use them as a scapegoat. The injuries were unfortunate, but what ultimately doomed this team wasn't the refs or the head shots or the brain farts by Marchand: it was the inability to put the puck past Binnington when he was still very beatable. He wasn't in Game 7, not after that initial rush, but he was in the other games and they just didn't make his life hard enough. Part of that credit, a lot of it, goes to the Blues' defense, but a lot of people complained about how seldom the Bruins just shot the puck at the net and how much they passed back and forth trying to set up the perfect shot. When they stormed the gates, they generally had good luck. They didn't do that enough in some games (especially in the middle two games that they lost) and it gave the Blues the chances they needed to get a couple on the board and then slowly suffocate them. Not sure why that is, but they definitely could have had more scoring chances (and maybe even more scores) if they'd shot the puck more instead of passing it over to the next guy. I don't know if that was Cassidy's decision or if it was just hesitation by the players on the ice, but it is still puzzling why they just didn't take all the shots they could. Maybe they thought Binnington was better than he was and played accordingly? If just one of those early shots had gone in during Game 7, I'm pretty sure they win the day. Damn shame that they didn't play with that kind of intensity in the opening periods of every game or throughout. What could have been...
 

lexrageorge

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Obviously every team has injuries of some sort this time of year. Just saying, they can provide a partial explanation of why a particular player's ice time is limited, or why they seem to be less than 100% effective. It's far more useful of an indicator than "they just didn't try hard enough" or "they didn't play with heart" or similar nonsense. The injuries can also provide an insight into what aspects the team should improve upon during the offseason.
 

Dummy Hoy

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The level of overreaction to a comment in a game thread the day after a disappointing loss is profound. I know the pile on urge is great and it’s fun to marginalize. But holy shit, saying the Bruins didn’t play particularly well on Wednesday night shouldn’t be controversial and should not imply that there’s no understanding that the Blues played well.
I think you should let it go, because that’s not what you and a lot of others said.
 

monty10

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It makes me queasy knowing that Craig Berube and Steve Ott get their names etched on the Cup. They rank right up there with Claude Lemieux and Ulf Samuelsson.
 

Haunted

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I was just discussing last night with some friends how this loss was one of the hardest in all my years. Not just with the timing of family members dying, but the... opportunity lost.

The universe lined up for the Bruins. This was as golden an opportunity to win as a team will ever, ever get.

And they blew it. Straight up blew it.
 

PedroSpecialK

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Blew it is harsh. They dominated the first 10 minutes of the first and were stoned by Binnington.

That one save on Krug (I think) when Binnington ended up on his ass is burned in my memory. I think I concussed myself with my hands clutching the back of my head when that didn't go
 

NYCSox

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Krug or Marchand? Cause Brad had about 30% of the net open and fired it into his shoulder.

Fuck is right. This is not going to go away.
 

LogansDad

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Marchand shooting back across the net into Binnington when the other half of the net was wide open are the two that will haunt me.

Fuck.
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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Binnington sucks too. That's what galls me. He's Andrew Fucking Hammond and in Feb he'll be in fucking Peoria. And they couldn't get one by him. He was straight up shit in 2 games in the Final. He could have been had.

Christ I'm angry about this. They will never have a better setup to win the Cup and they fucking blew it. I'm also never going to forget that the league decided to make Craig Berube the director of league play by allowing his ridiculous complaints about the reffing to essentially gift Game 5 to STL and to ensure no penalties were called in Game 7. Shameful.
 

RedOctober3829

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Acciari in early only to be stick checked. Bergy all alone in front. Marchy all alone on the PP in the slot. Krejci somehow not finishing the saucer pass from Krug at the end of the PP.

All in the first 8 minutes of the game. 2 of these go in and they fucking win.
 

Salem's Lot

Andy Moog! Andy God Damn Moog!
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I’m really starting to believe in the Dale Arnold curse. As soon as I saw that smug face that fat fucking prick was making pre game I should’ve known how that was going to go. The biggest improvement the organization could make this offseason is to get that fucking jinx off the broadcast.
 

Dummy Hoy

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Acciari in early only to be stick checked. Bergy all alone in front. Marchy all alone on the PP in the slot. Krejci somehow not finishing the saucer pass from Krug at the end of the PP.

All in the first 8 minutes of the game. 2 of these go in and they fucking win.
I think 1 goes in and they win. St Louis played one of the best games I’ve ever seen a team do under pressure on the road, getting the first and then shutting it down. They couldn’t do that if the Bs had scored 1st.

The Marchy miss was the one that will haunt me...he does not miss that.