The Blues have a chance to go from worst to first, but former captain David Backes and the Bruins will attempt to stop his old teammates from hoisting the Stanley Cup in this rematch of the 1970 final.
Every team goes through tough periods over the course of the campaign. Even the Tampa Bay Lightning, who basically moonwalked to the Presidents’ Trophy, had a tough stretch where they lost four games in a row, albeit suffering the most ill-timed four-game losing streak possible as it came in the first round of the post-season.
But only a few teams, at one point or another, suffered through the humiliation that comes along with being the league’s last place team. The St. Louis Blues were among them.
As you’ll certainly be reminded at various points throughout the Stanley Cup final, which begins Monday in Boston, the Blues were once a long, long way from becoming finalists for the NHL's greatest prize. Truth be told, less than five months ago, they couldn’t have been any further away. On Jan. 3, St. Louis was the league's 31st place outfit, staring up at every other squad in the NHL. Even the Ottawa Senators, Los Angeles Kings and New Jersey Devils, who had the unpleasant distinction of finishing in the league’s bottom three this season, were ahead of the Blues, who at the time were two games below .500 more than one month after implementing a coaching change.
Between then and now, however, much has changed. Primarily, goaltender Jordan Binnington was installed in the Blues crease and Craig Berube, who took over behind the bench after the firing of Mike Yeo, began to see the system he was implementing truly take hold. St. Louis was stifling defensively, consistent offensively and had a crease that was capable of getting the job done.
The tide began to turn in mid-January and took hold later in the month when an 11-game winning streak vaulted St. Louis back into playoff contention. By the time the season ended, the Blues were fighting for a divisional playoff spot and finished one point shy of home-ice advantage in the opening round. St. Louis has since embarked on this run to the Stanley Cup final, which could conclude with the Blues going from a last-place team in January to top of the NHL podium by June.
Regardless of the outcome, this has been the best single-season turnaround in NHL history, and that will be one of the most prominent storylines of the Stanley Cup final.
What else will we hear about often throughout the last series of the season? Here are six other storylines worth following:
BACKES VS. BLUES
Throughout the conference finals, there was no shortage of ink spilled about the potential for former Boston Bruins captain and longtime San Jose Shark Joe Thornton to square off against the only other franchise he’s ever known, and the possibility of such a final being the last hurrah in the surefire Hall of Fame career of ‘Jumbo Joe’ had some (read: many) openly wishing a San Jose-Boston showdown. St. Louis had other plans, though, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to be short on the Former Captain Against His Former Team storyline. In fact, we’ll get the exact same storyline but one that’s much fresher. It’s only been three seasons since David Backes, who captained the Blues from 2011-12 to 2015-16, departed for the Bruins as a free agent.
Backes maintains a deep-seated love for the city of St. Louis, and as colleague Ken Campbell wrote Sunday, the former Blues captain acknowledged that he has regrets about his inability to win a Stanley Cup with the franchise. Now, he’ll be doing everything in his power to ensure the Blues have to wait to win their first championship.
BINNINGTON VS. BRUINS
Backes isn’t the only player-versus-former teammates connection here, as Blues keeper Binnington isn’t all that far removed from a season spent with Boston’s farm team. Last season, the 25-year-old netminder, who has been a season-saver for St. Louis and finished top-three in Calder Trophy voting on the strength of his play throughout the second half of the campaign, skated in 31 total games with the Bruins’ AHL affiliate in Providence. Teammates of Binnington’s during that time included current Boston defensemen Connor Clifton and Matt Grzelcyk, winger Danton Heinen and third-string goaltender Zane McIntyre.
What advantage does that give Boston? Well, next to none, if we’re being honest. Heinen and Grzelcyk are likely to take regular shifts, but they played a combined 18 games in the minors last season. Hardly enough time to get a read on Binnington. Still, you can rest assured that it will come up.
SELKE CANDIDATES COLLIDE
It’s not often that there’s an argument to be made that Bruins all-star center Patrice Bergeron isn’t the best two-way player on the ice in any given contest, but Blues pivot Ryan O’Reilly is going to give the four-time Selke Trophy winner a run for his money throughout the final. Of course, O’Reilly has nowhere near the hardware to support his case as one of the premier 200-foot players in the sport, but throughout the past season he pieced together a brilliant campaign in which he wasn’t just St. Louis’ best three-zone performer, but arguably the most valuable member of the entire squad. He logged big minutes, posted a team-best 49 assists and 77 points and excellent underlying numbers. As we wrote when the Selke finalists were announced earlier this spring, O’Reilly should be the favorite for the award, though that doesn’t mean he’s going to win.
RASK CHASING RECORD PERFORMANCE
No Stanley Cup-winning goaltender, let alone any netminder with more than a dozen games played in a single post-season, has ever pieced together better numbers than those of Jonathan Quick during the Los Angeles Kings’ run to the 2011-12 league crown. Quick lost only four games all post-season and finished with a .946 save percentage, 1.41 goals-against average and had three shutouts to help the Kings to the franchise’s first Stanley Cup. But Rask enters the final with the potential, if he has a few dynamite outings, to at least match Quick’s performance.
With the final set to begin Monday, Rask has a .942 SP and 1.41 GAA with two shutouts in 17 games. Already, that’s the third-best performance in NHL history by any goaltender with at least 17 playoff games played. The Blues aren’t a high-scoring team and there’s a possibility for this to be a low-scoring series, and that could help Rask in his pursuit of a record-breaking performance. And record or not, Rask is in position to win the Conn Smythe Trophy.
PERRON’S PERILOUS POSITION
David Perron hasn’t yet been overcome with the joy of a Stanley Cup victory, but he’s had the chance to taste Stanley Cup defeat. Matter of fact, he can still probably close his eyes and feel that particular brand of agony. It was just last season that Perron, picked up by the Golden Knights by way of the expansion draft, played a hand in Vegas’ miracle run to the Stanley Cup final only to end the season watching the Washington Capitals parade around the ice with the trophy held high. That means Perron enters the Stanley Cup final with the chance to reverse his final fortunes and the possibility for another painful defeat.
Will he avoid back-to-back devastations in the final? Or will Perron become Marian Hossa Lite?
THE REMATCH
It was mentioned not long after the Blues punched their ticket to the Stanley Cup final, it has been brought up countless times since and it’s featured prominently in the NHL’s promotional trailer for the Stanley Cup final: the St. Louis-Boston series is a rematch of the 1970 Stanley Cup final, which culminated with Bobby Orr’s iconic “flying” goal.
In no way is this an actual rematch, though, and the Stanley Cup final history between these two teams should be nothing more than a footnote on the series. Not only was not a single player involved in this series playing for either team some 49 years ago, none of the players who will hit the ice – not even ageless wonder Zdeno Chara – were even born.
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