On Monday night, the St. Louis Blues and Boston Bruins will renew their playoff rivalry in the Stanley Cup Finals. The teams will be meeting for the third time in the playoffs with the Bruins holding a perfect record in series and games, winning all eight games. In the eight games, the Bruins have outscored the Blues 48 to 15 in those games. Of course, the first two playoff series occurred in 1970 and 1972, all within the Blues first five years of existence. Effectively, you had a powerhouse established playing against a relatively new expansion team. I’ll be very surprised if the Bruins are able to remain undefeated against the Blues this playoff season. You can read more about the keys to the series
here.
The Blues split with the Bruins in the regular season, losing 5-2 (with an empty net goal) in Boston in 2-1 in a shootout in St. Louis in February. What’s interesting is that the Bruins was in the 2nd game of back to back games while their loss came after having two days off before the game.
In the January game, the blues were without Robert Thomas, Tyler Bozak, and Alexander Steen and dressed seven defensemen. Jake Allen was in net. The Bruins were without Marcus Johansson and hadn’t traded for Charlie Coyle yet. In February, the Blues were without Brayden Schenn and David Perron while the Bruins were without David Pastrnak and Johansson.
In the 2019 playoffs, the Blues and Bruins share many similarities. Both teams have scored the same number of goals in each period and overtime though Boston’s third period goals are skewed as they have six empty net goals compared to the Blues one. Boston has nineteen players with goals versus the Blues eighteen. Nine Bruins have scored game winning goals while eight Blues have. Twenty one Bruins have at least a point while nineteen Blues do.
The Bruins have scored the 2nd most goals per game in the playoffs while the Blues rank 4th. Both teams have improved over their regular season performance where they ranked 11th and 15th respectively. Of course, if you adjust the totals for empty net goals, the Bruins are only scoring 0.11 goals per game more than the Blues.
The Bruins lead the playoffs in goals against per game at 1.94 while they Blues are 5th at 2.53. This shouldn’t be a surprise given that the Bruins were 3rd during the regular season and the Blues 5th. The Bruins improvement can be credited to Tuukka Rask’s insane 94.2% playoff save percentage, a decent increase from the team’s 91.2% regular season save percentage.
The Bruins have converted an insanely good 34% of their power play opportunities, besting their 25.9% save percentage which was 3rd best in the regular season. Over 40% of their power play goals came against the Toronto Maple Leafs who were the 17th ranked power play in the league. Against the Blue Jackets who were 2nd best in the league, they only converted 15.8% of their opportunities.
The Blues have converted 19.4% of their power play chances, a slight decrease from the 21.1% regular season conversion rate. The Blues faced strong penalty killers against Dallas who was ranked 5th and it showed as the Blues only converted 2 of 22 chances for a dismal 9% success rate. When they faced the Sharks (15th) and Jets (22nd), their conversation rate skyrocketed to 25.6%.
The Bruins have also been excellent on the penalty kill, successful 86.3% of the time, a big improvement over the regular season where they were only 16th in the NHL. They only stopped 81% of the chances against the 8th ranked Leafs power play. Facing the 20th ranked Hurricanes and 28th ranked Blue Jackets is accounting for a lot of their increase as they killed 88.6% against those below average teams.
The Blues have only stopped 78% of their chances though they had to face the 4th ranked, 6th ranked, and 11th ranked power plays this post season. The Blues were very good in the Western Conference finals, killing 85.7% of the chances.
The Blues may be the team this round that has a minute management issue. Their top three defensemen are averaging 73 minutes a game while the Bruins top three average only 69 minutes.
Bruins players’ success against the Blues
A number of Bruins have enjoyed success against the Blues. David Krejci has 17 points in 17 games though he only has 4 goals. Torey Krug has 10 points in 11 games while Patrice Bergeron has 13 points in 16 games, also with only 4 goals.
Brad Marchand has 9 points in 12 games with 7 goals while former Blues captain David Backes has 3 goals in 5 games. Chris Wagner has overachieved against the Blues with 5 points in 8 games.
David Pastrnak has four assists in six games. The Blues are the only Pastrnak has faced and not scored against. He’ll get a number of games to try and end this drought.
Tuukka Rask has been very strong against the Blues. In his two games this season he has a 1.44 goals against average and a 94.9% save percentage. In his career, he has a 2.12 goals against average and a 92.4% save percentage. Wouldn’t it be ironic if Rask got pulled or hurt and former Blue Jaroslav Halak took the net? For those who don’t remember, Halak couldn’t bear to face the Blues days after being traded to Washington. Facing them in the Stanley Cup Finals would be something else. Halak has been poor against the Blues in his career with a 4.56 goals against average and an 86% save percentage.
Blues players’ success against the Bruins
For the Blues, their 2019 leading playoff scorer, Jaden Schwartz (12 goals, 16 points in 19 games), has had the most success against the Bruins with 12 points in 11 games and a 21.4% shooting percentage. Pat Maroon has 9 points and 7 goals in 11 games with a 29.2% shooting percentage.
David Perron has 12 points in 19 games while Alexander Steen has 23 in 39 games including a goal this year. Vladimir Tarasenko has 6 points in 10 games while Ryan O’Reilly has 12 in 18 games. Brayden Schenn only has 1 goal in 19 games with a 3% shooting percentage. Tyler Bozak has 6 points in 12 playoff games against the Bruins.
Alex Pietrangelo only has 5 points in 14 games while Colton Parayko has 4 points in 8 games.
Jordan Binnington has only played one game against the Bruins, the shootout win in February, giving up one goal in 65 minutes while stopping 96.9% of the shots he faced.
I expect another close, tight series that my heart says will go to the Blues in six or seven games.
It’s a great day for hockey.
NHL Champions for Charity Playoff Edition
In what I hope becomes a Hockeybuzz tradition, Bruins Hockeybuzz writer
Anthony Travalgia and I placed a wager on the series. If the Blues win, Anthony has agreed to make a donation to the
Gateway Area Multiple Sclerosis Society (@mssociety on twitter) whose mission is help each person affected by MS in St. Louis address the challenges of living with MS. They help by raising funds for cutting-edge research, driving change through advocacy, facilitating professional education and providing programs and services that empower people with MS and their families to move their lives forward. I picked this charity to honor Blues anthem singer, Charles Glenn. Read more about Charles’ battle with MS
here. If the Bruins win, I will donate to the
JDRF (@JDRF on twitter) whose mission is improve lives today and tomorrow by accelerating life-changing breakthroughs to cure, prevent and treat T1D and its complications.
Sharks Hockeybuzz writer
Steve Palumbo and I placed a wager on the series. Since the Blues won, Steve should be making a donation to the
Gateway Area Multiple Sclerosis Society (@mssociety on twitter) whose mission is help each person affected by MS in St. Louis address the challenges of living with MS. They help by raising funds for cutting-edge research, driving change through advocacy, facilitating professional education and providing programs and services that empower people with MS and their families to move their lives forward. I selected the MS Society to honor St. Louis Blues Anthem singer Charles Glenn. Read more about Charles
here.
I hope that our wagers will inspire players and fans to pledge donations for each win their team makes in the NHL playoffs.
NHL Champions for Charity Regular Season
Given that the Predators pulled out the division title, all be it not without some controversial officiating in the last couple of games, Best Buddies Tennessee
https://www.bestbuddies.org/tennessee/ is the beneficiary. Best Buddies Tennessee is dedicated to establishing a volunteer movement that creates opportunities for one-to-one friendships, integrated employment, leadership development and inclusive living opportunities for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. As a side note, I recently got to experience a Best Buddies even in the St. Louis area that was led by the Eureka high school football team. It was a lot of fun and brought a lot of joy to those involved.
It’s a great day for hockey.
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