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The Blues Were Hard Only on Themselves |
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Ted Sator, who was head coach of the Rangers and the Sabres during the eighties and before and after was an assistant with the Flyers and Blues, always said the easiest contest in any series to win was Game One. His teams did pretty well at it, too, with Sator’s early birds getting the worm three times in the four playoff series in which he was his team’s boss and pulling off a huge Ranger upset of the Flyers (32-point regular season points differential) in 1986.
In what likely will be the least emotional game of the series, if you can gird yourself to come out with just a little more jump, you can get the jump, is what Teddy was saying. That always made perfect sense, well, if not perfect sense than certainly more than not making video review available to four officials who missed a hand pass that set up an overtime goal.
Teams forget to set the alarm clock before Game One for understandable reasons. One club probably still is feeling for bullet holes after a narrow escape in the previous round. Or, being from the other conference, sees Brad Marchand only twice a year and mistakes him for Lady Byng. Or has been off for so long following a sweep that Don Marcotte was playing in the previous Bruins game to Monday night’s Stanley Cup final opener.
By Game Two backs–and Backeses–are up, and one team is closer to the wall, so the series really can begin. But one club already has won a highly-winnable contest, which hours of painstaking research here at Hockey Buzz has revealed every time to be one fewer game necessary to win at the end. Ask the Lightning–provided any of them have forced themselves from bed yet and opened the shades–Game One can even turn out to be the pivotal one of a series. Occasionally they get away faster than Dougie Hamilton with Ovie coming.
More often than not, this does not turn to be case, however. Indeed, Game One was the easiest to win for Sator’s 1989-89 Sabres, who smoked the Bruins 6-0 at Boston Garden in Game One and then didn’t win another one. Go figure. Last round, the Blues lost big to the Sharks in Game One and then got the back-of-the-hand pass in Game Three and still took over the series thereafter. So, as in the case of practically every goaltender interference review, you never really know how these things are going to go,
So what’s our point? A pointy stick-in-the-abdomen from the coach before a Game One is a much-underutilized motivational tactic. Why wait until you are down a game before throwing what Mike Milbury used to refer to as a “nutty”? You know, wipe that glow off the faces of the boys at having already advanced this far. And if there is no evidence of them becoming self-satisfied then, go to page three of the coach’s manual and do what Don Cherry would have done: Make something up. Anything to try to get the juices going one game before the other team can.
Opportunity knocked for the Blues on Monday night and they didn’t answer. In 10 days off since smoking the Hurricanes, the Bruins had, as expected, grown cobwebs under their arms longer that Brett Burns’ beard, which St. Louis had used to carry the play for the first 13 minutes and jump to a 1-0 lead. Then suddenly, the Blues started to play like they had only one player who ever had been in a Stanley Cup final, which is the case and probably was the best rationale not to pick them to win. Certainly it was a reason they never had the puck again Monday night until pulling their goalie.
After going up 1-0, the Blues took five straight penalties, including a couple in the offensive zone by Perron and Robert Thomas; a high stick by Joel Edmondson of David Backes, and a ridiculously-gratuitous cross-check into the boards of Connor Clifton by Oscar Sundqvist. Never mind the Bruins scored on only one of the power plays. Momentum was squandered and the tide had turned even before Vladimir Tarasenko cashed a grievous David Pastrnak giveaway to make it 2-0.
The Bruins used each of those two free minutes of puck possession to knock off a little more rust and soon the Blues were the team looking like they hadn’t played since February. The next good chance Tuukka Rask had to turn away was a redirection by Brayden Schenn with Jordan Binnington pulled and the score 4-2.
Hard to believe. This is a St. Louis team that got into the third round with minimal production from Tarasenko, via its relentless pressure by 12 forwards, yet Monday night had its fourth line completely outplayed by Boston’s. The Blues gave away the puck even more blatantly than they once gave away Joey Mullen. There wasn’t a Bruin within 15 feet of Edmonson when he threw it away on the winning goal.
Perron, who is the only Blue to have played in a final, had a brutal night. The Bruins cleared their zone as untouched as the Clarence Campbell Bowl. It was 49 years between St. Louis possessions in the Boston end. And a fine opportunity to be up 1-0 and put significant pressure on the Bruins to get out of town with just a split was squandered.
Craig Berube, who knew just the right thing to say when Game Three was taken away from the Blues in the conference final, needs to calm some nerves. It wasn’t only the Bruins that had some time off before this series and the Blues used theirs to let the mindset that has gotten them this far slip away.
The best reason to like them in this series was their big, heavy, relentlessness that could wear down 87-year-old Zdeno Chara to Zuccarello size by Game Six. Indeed, the old man, on for both Blues goals, looked ready for a rocking chair early until the Blues let him play in one for most of the final 40 minutes, a lamentable turn of events for St. Louis.
But of course, this is no time for regrets at having a grand opportunity slip between the fingers. Emotionally the second easiest game to win in a series might be Game Two after losing the opener.
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Blogger •NHL Hall of Fame writer • 
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