GDT: Stanley Cup Final (God it feels good to just type that) Game #1 | St. Louis Blues @ Boston Bruins

[LBlues24]

Again, this was not supposed to be easy. But being this damn close, and with the extra bit of time between games this series... every loss is going to be a little extra frustrating.

Game 2 can’t come soon enough.

 

[TheDizee]

i had blues in 6 and losing first 2 in boston.

but i am worried about the officiating tbh, blues wont win the cup killing 5 penalties a night.

 

[AjaxManifesto]

I'm not happy at all. I knew The Bruins would be rusty after 11 days off (WAYYYYY too many to stay competitive in the playoffs). I figured that The Blues could dictate play early and build up a lead that would give them confidence , and get them in a groove playing THEIR game. I hoped that would carry them through the rest of the game. But, as soon as The Bruins got their legs under them, and turned on their speed, won puck races, and started getting in The Blues' faces seemingly instantly, as soon as they'd receive the puck, The Blues lost their poise, played sloppily, agave up the puck a lot on weak passes, just trying to clear the puck out of the zone. That just leads to a fast team just bringing it back into the offensive zone very quickly, and the defenders tiring out quickly. The Blues ended up on their heels most of The 2nd, and ALL of The 3rd, taking bad penalties and tiring out.

I hope Berube has an answer to that problem. The Blues rebounded against Winnipeg and Dallas, and San Jose. They're certainly capable of doing that against Boston, too. I just hope they do just that.

I’m not hopeful. But we made it to the SCF, so at least we are here.

Blowing a 2-0 lead like THIS is demoralizing. Really stupid stuff IMO.

The first line was great, everybody else folded under pressure.

 

[Ranksu]

I feel we give away win. Stupid penalties and game flow disappear.

 

[TheDizee]

I’m not hopeful. But we made it to the SCF, so at least we are here.

Blowing a 2-0 lead like THIS is demoralizing. Really stupid stuff IMO.

The first line was great, everybody else folded under pressure.

it doesnt matter if it was 1-0, 2-0 or 5-0, team played like trash outside of the first 25mins. a loss is a loss, i dont see it as a demoralizing loss at all. a demoralizing loss was the hand pass game.

refs forced the blues to burn energy killing off so many PK and got them out of their groove. People warned us about the officiating with Boston but since I dont watch alot of East games I havent seen it but I have to agree with their thoughts. Looked like the token Ref Jose or Refhawk game out there. Blues deserved to lose though anyways, too much standing around and too much allowing the Bruins to get speed thru the neutral zone. 3rd line was pathetic tonight too IMO.

Blues forecheck looks like it can wreak havoc on Boston's D so hopefully the officiating cuts the ticky tack crap and flat out bad calls for the rest of this series. This is for the cup so hopefully they let the teams play.

 

[Veneficus]

I didn't see the first period. I did see the Thomas hooking and that looked iffy. Most of the other penalties looked about right. That's not why we lost though. To much watching the puck and bad passing. I'm not worried, I think all things we did wrong are fixable.

Hopefully Dunn is ready because Eddy was especially bad. That's my only negative comment. Didn't really like him going after Backes after cross checking him either, Marchand is bad enough, don't need angry Backes also.

 

[Chet Manly]

So...

Cross checking on Sunny.

No charging on Krug.

. Got it.

 

[ChicagoBlues]

I'm not worried. Blues were bad in game 1 against the Sharks. With that said they need to stop taking penalties. Killing those penalties took them off their game. I would scratch Eddy for game 2. If Dunn isn't ready I would dress Del Zotto

Not worried.

 

[ChicagoBlues]

So...

Cross checking on Sunny.

No charging on Krug.

. Got it.

The Blues got away with A LOT!!!!

 

[mk80]

I’m on my phone so I’ll have a better thought out response in the morning but: first period was good, after the Tarasenko goal Boston really took control. I’m thinking a lot of our guys got caught in the bright lights of the big stage, and I’m expecting a better response in game 2. Overall I think we can beat the Bruins with our A game. Again I’m going to process this one overnight and post tomorrow with a more well thought out reaction.

 

[Tryblot]

Blues got dominated. Krug hit was clean. Hopefullt they can come out more prepared than this game.

 

[Novacain]

Blues got dominated. Krug hit was clean. Hopefullt they can come out more prepared than this game.

I mean, it was cleanish. It wasn't a jumping motion or anything. But it could have been called a charge very very easily.

 

[Tryblot]

I mean, it was cleanish. It wasn't a jumping motion or anything. But it could have been called a charge very very easily.

I dont know, he started gliding from just outside the blueline. Charging is usually when youre're taking strides all the way up to the hit.

 

[Lakas]

The Krug hit was clean, but I've seen that called a charge before. Some really unfortunate calls basically hemmed the Blues in their own zone. Bruins have great transitions out of their own zone but I think the 5 PKs in a period was a major factor too.

 

[LBlues24]

I mean, it was cleanish. It wasn't a jumping motion or anything. But it could have been called a charge very very easily.

Don’t like talking about penalties that much, but agreed. If the borderline soft cross check on Sunny (that evidently hurt us) is called, I would expect the borderline charge to get called.

 

[bluesfan94]

I dont know, he started gliding from just outside the blueline. Charging is usually when youre're taking strides all the way up to the hit.

That used to be the standard but it isn't anymore. Basically, they wanted to do away with guys getting up to full speed then gliding for just a little and laying down a big hit. Which is essentially what happened.

 

[TheDizee]

i didnt like any of the calls in the game except the 2 trips in the first period. the rest of the game was a total ref fest. that is NOT what needs to happen if we wanna win the cup.

The Edmundson penalty was the worst one of the night. We watched Backes for a decade here and I cannot recall ever seeing him dive like he did there. That was a total joke call that really took the wind out of the teams sails. They killed it but it just forces your players to endure 2 mins of high stress and pressure when it was all due to a horrible and flat out bad call.

Bruins are a good home team, gonna need to find a way to win a game or two there and being on the PK 5 times is not how its gonna happen.

 

[Bluesguru]

Didn’t like how Boston turned up the speed on us and we had no response at all. Thinking Berube might need to lay back and defend more to slow the game down.

 

[ChicagoBlues]

The Blues got away with a lot.

The officiating was outstanding.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Folks, a few things:

1. Sorry for your loss tonight, I was rooting for you.

2. Report the trolls, don't reply to them. We'll get to it, usually pretty quickly - though sometimes it takes longer than it should.

3. Talking about/complaining about infractions you've gotten in the past is against the rules and people get infracted for this all the time. Please refrain from doing so.

Good luck the rest of the way!

 

[GoldenSeal]

I still believe.

 

[TheDizee]

i really hope NBC loses rights with the league whenever their tv deal is up. that intro was something boston would play on their home ice before the game and yet here is nbc running it on national tv. are they gonna have hamm or goodman do a promo before game 3 that is aired on national tv? somehow i doubt it.

then you have some lance armstrong intermission discussion, bill buckner being talked about and so much other garbage not related to hockey. its the stanley cup finals and we have to deal with nbc being a total joke, its a shame.

 

[Bobby Orrtuzzo]

Folks, a few things:

1. Sorry for your loss tonight, I was rooting for you.

2. Report the trolls, don't reply to them. We'll get to it, usually pretty quickly - though sometimes it takes longer than it should.

3. Talking about/complaining about infractions you've gotten in the past is against the rules and people get infracted for this all the time. Please refrain from doing so.

Good luck the rest of the way!

Had no idea about #3, noted

 

[Majorityof1]

Several Blues fans on HF Blues Board: " DeBoer is such a cry baby. Always whining about the refs after he loses. You get all the calls stop whining. So pathetic."

A week later, also same Blues fans: "We lost this game because of the refs. Why do the refs always have to screw us? <whimper and whine> That was not a penalty at all even though it totally fit the rule book definition of the penalty because he hit him in the neck at 70% not the head at 100%. I mean if checking someone in the neck with your stick at a medium level of hardness is a penalty, how can we be expected to play hockey? We can't win with these refs. If we lose, its totally the refs fault"

Geeze. The penalties were penalties. There is no strength requirement in the rule book. Complain about uneven calls if you want, but don't say blatant penalties weren't. And even complaining about unevenness of calls is childish and hypocritical if you called out the Sharks for it.

We lost because we got outplayed. They were faster, they transitioned the puck well, and they made some real nice plays on goals. We couldn't establish our game, and at the end they outworked us. But we will bounce back. That is this team's MO. Expect a better effort Wednesday.

 

[ezcreepin]

Several Blues fans on HF Blues Board: " DeBoer is such a cry baby. Always whining about the refs after he loses. You get all the calls stop whining. So pathetic."

A week later, also same Blues fans: "We lost this game because of the refs. Why do the refs always have to screw us? <whimper and whine> That was not a penalty at all even though it totally fit the rule book definition of the penalty because he hit him in the neck at 70% not the head at 100%. I mean if checking someone in the neck with your stick at a medium level of hardness is a penalty, how can we be expected to play hockey? We can't win with these refs. If we lose, its totally the refs fault"

Geeze. The penalties were penalties. There is no strength requirement in the rule book. Complain about uneven calls if you want, but don't say blatant penalties weren't. And even complaining about unevenness of calls is childish and hypocritical if you called out the Sharks for it.

We lost because we got outplayed. They were faster, they transitioned the puck well, and they made some real nice plays on goals. We couldn't establish our game, and at the end they outworked us. But we will bounce back. That is this team's MO. Expect a better effort Wednesday.

I would that most Blues fans are probably upset at how this game was called, not necessarily the calls. Maybe the Blais call was weak, but I am pretty confident in saying that most are upset at the lack of calls for and how many there were against. Aren't the finals supposed to be a "let em play" series? Not that what the Blues did weren't penalties, but game 1 last year had 4 penalties in total. The Blues had 5 against them. That seems pretty staggering, especially if this trend continues. Now, you could say at the end of this (assuming the Blues took 70% of the penalties in this series) that the Blues earned them, but I don't think people would be upset to see a "fair" game be called, whatever "fair" means.

On your point though, the Blues got on their heels early in the second and couldn't recover. They started chasing I felt, and looked for that homerun pass to win/tie the game, and this obviously hurt them. If they play 5 man hockey, I have confidence they will win. I HOPE they do this, but they've shown an inability to do it all series. It usually takes a game or 2 for them to get going.