Fifteen wins down, only one to go for the St. Louis Blues to win their first-ever Stanley Cup

Foresthill

EOG Addicted
The Blues have accomplished a lot of firsts in their first Stanley Cup Final since 1970 against these same Boston Bruins:

1. Win their first Stanley Cup Final series game and road game at the same time to tie the series 1-1 -- game #2 (1-7 on the road).
2. Win their first Stanley Cup Final series home game -- game #4 to tie the series 2-2 (1-7 at home).
3. Win their first Stanley Cup Final series game to give the Blues their first ever 'Finals' series lead 3-2 (now 2-7 on the road, 2-1 on the road this series).

Will the Blues accomplish the ultimate first, and win the Stanley Cup Final tonight in St. Louis for the first time in Game #6, skating 'the Cup' in front of what would be deliriously happy St. Louis Fans? Blues fans and bettors sure hope so.

Or, will there be a winner take all game #7 in Boston on Wednesday night to see which team gets to 16 wins first and, thus, skates the Cup on home ice (Boston) or road ice (St. Louis)?

Tune into game #6 at 5:00 pm pacific time to find out. Puck drop at 5:23 pm pacific time.
 
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winkyduck

TYVM Morgan William!!!
Down one nothing almost end of 2nd. In retrospect, guy holding 100k future should have taken 78k.

100% agree. Bet $30k on Bruins +245 series price and no matter what happens you are GUARANTEED at least a $70k payday. Now he is fucked.

I have not seen a G7 line yet but based on the past I expect Bruins -160ish to be the price and it might be too much to pass up Blues +150ish although I think Bruins 2-1 will be the G7 Final Score
 

Heim

EOG Master
100% agree. Bet $30k on Bruins +245 series price and no matter what happens you are GUARANTEED at least a $70k payday. Now he is fucked.

I have not seen a G7 line yet but based on the past I expect Bruins -160ish to be the price and it might be too much to pass up Blues +150ish although I think Bruins 2-1 will be the G7 Final Score


No. He put his future ticket up for bids with the online broker Prop Swap. On Friday he received a 78k offer. After commissions he would net 68k. He was a tourist who usually lost $400 at the tables, however this trip he decided to forgo the tables & put it on his fav team at 250-1. Doubt he has 30k to hedge.
 

Bushay

NHL Expert
Sharing the whole article instead of just the link as the Athletic is a paid publication.

Seven reasons why the Blues are definitely winning tonight (and also seven why the Bruins are)


By Sean McIndoe 7h ago 79
We’re hours away from the first Game 7 of a Stanley Cup final in eight years. Are you pumped? I’m a little pumped. This is going to be fun.
So who’s going to win? I have no idea. Really, none at all. I could pretend that I do, but anyone who’s been following my predictions so far won’t be buying it for a second. And can you blame me? The 2019 playoffs have been total chaos. Anyone who tells you that they’ve got it all figured out now, with one game to go, is full of it. I’m not even going to try, because I’ve been trying to predict Game 7s for decades now and I’ve only ever been right once.
So no, I’m not going to be right. But could I get you to settle for half-right? I can come up with seven reasons why the Bruins are definitely going to win Game 7. I can also come up with seven more why the Blues are an absolute lock. If you’re an optimist, pick the team you like best and only read their entries. If you prefer feeling sick heading into a big game, only read the other team. Read all of them, and come away feeling just as confused as when you started. Or just wait until tomorrow, read the entries of the team that won, and then head to the comments to call me a genius.
Your call. There are no wrong answers here. Well, there are – seven out of 14, to be exact. But that’s a better batting average than I normally have, so let’s get to them.
The Bruins will win because: The first line is finally waking up.
The Patrice Bergeron/Brad Marchand/David Pastrnak line – and no, we’re not calling them the Perfection Line, knock that off – has been hit-and-miss for a lot of the postseason. They were broken up against Toronto, reunited, and certainly had their moments. But they never really rolled for long stretches the way we’ve seen in the past. It’s a credit to the rest of the Bruins forwards that they had the depth to keep winning in spite of their top line struggling.
For most of the final, it’s been the same story, with Brayden Schenn’s line winning the matchup. The Bergeron line’s struggles have been so noticeable that there’s been plenty of speculation that some or all of them may be playing through serious injuries.
But on Sunday, for the first time in the series, the Bergeron line looked dominant, while Schenn’s looked outclassed. That’s just about the best news you could get as a Bruins fan. Maybe they’ve made an adjustment, or maybe they’re healthy again, or maybe they’re just heating up. You don’t really care about the why right now. You just know that if the top line can dominate, every other matchup falls into place really nicely.
The Blues will win because: The stats tell us that Jordan Binnington can’t lose in this situation.
We’ve heard about it all postseason. Overall, Binnington’s playoff numbers aren’t all that great, and he’s had a few games in this series alone where he’s looked very ordinary. But after a loss, he gains some sort of weird superpowers where he becomes unbeatable.
In the playoffs, he’s 7-2 with a 1.83 GAA after a loss, which plays into the narrative that the kid has ice in his veins. And it is a narrative to some extent – every goalie who makes it deep into the playoffs has a good record after a loss, because the ones that don’t get eliminated early. But sometimes even a narrative can have value as long as everyone believes it. Under normal circumstances, a team heading into Game 7 with a young goalie who just got shelled in Game 6 might be worried. The Blues don’t have to be.


Bruce Bennett / Getty Images
The Bruins will win because: The stats also tell us that Tuukka Rask can’t lose in this situation.
Wait, did you say Binnington is a 1.83 GAA in these types of games? Rask has that beat.

Emily Kaplan

@emilymkaplan

https://twitter.com/emilymkaplan/status/1137927448035807232

Tuukka Rask in an elimination game this postseason: 3-0, 1.33 GAA, .953 save pct (82 saves, 86 shots). Four goals allowed in 179.81 minutes.

67

11:40 PM - Jun 9, 2019
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Can both goalies be unbeatable in the same game? Huh. We may be here a while.
But while we’re on the subject of goaltending, let’s point out that Rask has been the better of the two, both in the series and in the playoffs. I’m not sure I’m willing to give him the Conn Smythe even in a losing cause, but there’s a case to be made. He’s been that good. The Blues have already survived having one goaltender stand on his head in a Game 7 against them, but I don’t like their odds if it happens again.
The Blues will win because: Their forecheck continues to be great.
As Justin Bourne broke down in yesterday’s column, when the Blues are forechecking at full speed, the Bruins just don’t seem to have any answers. Once they get the puck, their cycle has been strong and they’ve been able to sustain pressure at even strength. The Bruins can beat most teams at that game. Not the Blues, apparently.
That sort of stuff matters in any game. But in a winner-take-all contest, it looms even larger. As Bourne points out, a lot of the Blues’ forecheck success (or occasional lack of it) comes from just going all out on the attack, every time. That’s hard to do consistently over a season or even a series. But this is one game, for everything, and you can rest all summer once it’s done. There’s no reason that the Blues forwards shouldn’t look like a pack of rabid animals out there, all game long. And if they do, the Bruins may not have any answers.
The Bruins will win because: The Blues just had their big chance, and they blew it.
It was right there. On Sunday night, everything was all set up for the Blues to finally win their first Cup, and to do it on home ice in front of the long-suffering fans. They’d taken a must-win game at home in Game 4, then had some luck in a classic road win in Game 5. They’d taken the momentum, and they had the Bruins wobbling on the ropes. All they had to do was close it out.
And then they got their doors blown off. Now they have to go into Boston and survive a winner-take-all game in hostile territory. Good luck with that.
The Blues will win because: Their whole season has been about defying expectations.
Oh, will it be hard to win Game 7 in Boston? Harder than being in last place in January, with no goaltending and your GM shopping the entire roster and the fan base openly rooting for better lottery odds, and then making it to within one game of the Cup?
Keep telling the Blues they can’t do this. It seems to work for them.

Jason Brough

@JasonBroughTSN

https://twitter.com/JasonBroughTSN/status/1137911843169529856

Wednesday is gonna be awesome. People will say that the Blues are done, that they’re dead men walking, but their whole identity during this run has been built on overcoming adversity.

49

10:38 PM - Jun 9, 2019
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Bushay

NHL Expert
Too big, wouldn't let me share the whole thing. Heres the rest of it.

The Bruins will win because: They’ve been here before.
We almost certainly overrate the importance of experience, and the nebulous quality of “knowing how to win.” Hockey is still hockey, and all of these guys have been playing it their entire lives. Once the game starts, it’s not like the inexperienced guys are going to be wandering around confused about what to do.
But there’s still at least something to be said for having been here before. And the Bruins, at least a few of them, actually have. Key players like Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron played (and won) the last Game 7 in a Cup final, back in 2011. Zdeno Chara did too, and he’s about to set the all-time record for having played in the most Game 7s in a career. And those players were also part of the 2013 team that should have gone to a Game 7 if not for a 17-second collapse. Tuukka Rask was in goal for it. So they’ve seen both sides of the coin.
Most of the Bruins roster wasn’t around for those years. But in the moments leading up to the game, when younger guys are maybe starting to feel the pressure just a little bit, they can look around the room and lock eyes with guys who’ve been through it before. The Blues can’t do that. That should mean something.
The Blues will win because: They have the Bruins right where they want them.
Which is to say, they have them on the road. A big part of the Blues’ second-half resurrection was their play on the road, and that’s continued in the playoffs. They’ve actually been better on the road than they have at home.

Dan Rosen

@drosennhl

https://twitter.com/drosennhl/status/1138176108518662144

Looking ahead to Game 7, there's this stat on the Blues' road record: They are 9-3 on the road in the playoffs, including 5-0 in games following a loss. They were 15-6-5 on the road from Jan. 7 to the end of the regular season.

54

4:08 PM - Jun 10, 2019
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Ideally, sure, you’d rather be playing a Game 7 on home ice. But sometimes, that home crowd can hurt as much as it helps. You get a little too hyped, you start running around, maybe a bounce or two goes against you. Suddenly those rabid fans have gone quiet and you start squeezing the stick. It happens.
For a team like the Blues, it might be better to settle into visitors’ mode. Stay focused, keep it simple, and don’t worry about what the crowd is doing. Take care of business on the road, and the party will be waiting for you and your new Cup when you get back home.
The Bruins will win because: Their edge on the power play is huge.
Boston’s dominance on special teams has been a story all spring, especially with the man advantage. They’ve already had seven games in this run in which they’ve scored multiple power play goals, including that four-for-four performance in Game 3.
Meanwhile, the Blues have one power play goal in the entire series. And while we can get into sample size troubles when we’re just looking at a handful of games, the St. Louis power play goal isn’t passing the eye test either. They get a man advantage, they get set up, and they’re just kind of … there. Even when they’re generating shots, which they were last game You can’t go and reinvent the wheel eight months into the season, but you’d think we’d see at least a few new looks or wrinkles or something. There have been a few times during this series where I forgot the Blues even had a power play midway through one.
This will probably be a close game where goals will be hard to come by. The Bruins are likely to get at least one on the power play. The Blues aren’t. That might be all the edge that Boston needs.
 

Bushay

NHL Expert
Greg M. Cooper / USA TODAY Sports
The Blues will win because: It’s a Game 7, there won’t be any power plays, is this your first day here?
The Blues and Bruins have each played a Game 7 so far this postseason, both of which featured just two power plays – and one of those came on a too-many-men where the officials had no choice. And those weren’t exactly outliers. There were four power plays in the Canes/Caps Game 7 (including a mandatory puck-over-glass call), and six in the Sharks/Avs. The only Game 7 where power plays were a big factor was the Sharks and Knights, and we know how that turned out – with everyone screaming that the referees had ruined the game by calling more than they should.
You get the point. In the NHL, referees don’t like to “decide the game.” Put aside whether you like that approach or not, it’s the reality of today’s league. Everyone would be perfectly happy if the two teams went out there and played a penalty-free Game 7, regardless of how many calls should be made. And given how both the physical battle and the special teams have looked so far, that’s a big advantage to the Blues.
The wild card here is the lobbying that’s come from both coaches. Craig Berube asked for fewer penalties, and he got it. Bruce Cassidy pushed back after Game 5. Maybe he gets his way, and the refs actually call the rulebook tonight, even if it means giving someone four or five power plays. But if you’ve been a fan of this league for a while, you know not to get your hopes up.
The Bruins will win because: They’re well-suited to win the kind of game this will probably be.
Here’s a strange stat about Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final. We’ve had 15 of them in NHL history, most recently in 2011 and dating all the way back to 1942. That covers a ton of eras, from the World War II days to the Original Six to the high-scoring ’70s and ’80s to the modern dead puck era.
Guess how many of those 15 games featured more than five goals.
One.
That’s weird, right? There was a game between the Wings and Rangers in 1950 that went to double overtime and ended with a 4-3 Detroit win. That’s it. Every other game has had five or fewer goals, and the last six have had four or fewer. There have been four shutouts, and nine more games where the losing team only scored once. We haven’t seen both teams score multiple goals in a Game 7 since the Rangers and Canucks back in 1994.
In other words, history suggests we’re probably not going to see much in the way of offense tonight. And while both teams have shown they can win defensive battles, the Bruins have shown it more often. They found a way to win 21 games this year where they scored three goals or fewer, and 10 where they scored just once or twice. The Blues had 17 wins with three or fewer goals, and only four with one or two.
That’s obviously not to say that the Blues can’t win a tight, low-scoring game – we only have to look back at Game 7 against the Stars to see that. But the Bruins have been doing it all year long.
The Blues will win because: They’re healthier … maybe?
You never know in the playoffs. You look at a team’s injury report and see that it’s all clear. Then the season ends, and you find out the first-line winger had his leg amputated in Round 2 and was playing on a limb he made out of his toddler’s spare legos. Then we all shrug, briefly feel bad about calling him slow for the last four weeks, and move on to the offseason.
So no, the Blues aren’t healthy. But for lack of a better term, they seem to be playoff healthy. That injury list really is all clear. And they’ll get Ivan Barbashev back from suspension, so it’s all hands on deck for the biggest game of the year.
The Bruins are in relatively decent shape too. But they’ll probably be missing Matt Grzelcyk, and we know that Zdeno Chara is nowhere close to 100 percent. Mix in the questions about Brad Marchand and the rest of the first line, and the health column appears to be at least a slight edge to St. Louis.
The Bruins will win because: Come on, it’s the St. Louis Blues.
We’ve been over this. There may not be a team in the NHL that has a more tortured history than the St. Louis Blues.
Have things been going well lately? Sure. This is what the hockey gods do to teams like this. You can’t just keep kicking someone when they’re down. At some point, you have to pick them up, dust them off, and tell them it’s finally going to be OK because this time it’s different. Then, when they let their guard down, you kick them again.
We’re supposed to believe that this same Blues team that’s spent the last 52 years finding new ways to get their pants pulled down in front of the hockey world is going to walk into Boston, a city that wins a major sports championship every 15 minutes, and win a do-or-die game for the Stanley Cup?
Come on. It’s the Blues. Something horrible is going to happen.
The Blues will win because: Screw the past, this is destiny.
What, did you want it to be easy? Did you really think you were going to get the perfect little Game 6 home win with a bow on top? You didn’t know all along that it would come down to one game, on the road, with this entire crazy season on the line?
Like we said up above: Come on, it’s the St. Louis Blues.
That doesn’t mean you’re destined to see it all end in tears. OK, it absolutely might mean that, sure. But it doesn’t have to. It could mean that you’ve spent over half a century building up to the one year where it all came together. And if that’s what’s happening, let’s give the hockey gods some credit – they’re piling it on pretty thick for you. Fired coach, dead last place, fourth-string goalie, total write-off … I mean, this is getting close to Hollywood stuff. And I don’t remember seeing many classic Hollywood movies that build up to the big payoff in Game 6.
So sure, it’s going seven. It was always going seven. And the Blues are going to walk into Boston and steal the Cup away from the Bruins, because that’s how this has to end. Probably in overtime. Maybe after an offside review, but let’s hope not. Just know that when that final bounce comes, it will finally go the Blues’ way.
Will it make sense? No. None of this season has. Hell, not much of the last half-century has. Maybe it was never supposed to. But tonight is the night it was all leading up to. And it ends with the St. Louis Blues finally, mercifully winning the Stanley Cup. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.
(Note to editors: Remember to delete that last section when the Bruins win.)
 

winkyduck

TYVM Morgan William!!!
I felt VERY confident the Bruins would win G6

As for this one.....................

.....................I have NO CLUE what is going to happen. None! I like U5.5 but no chance I lay that kind of juice. The ML price is appealing on the Blues but I can also make a case for the Bruins on the PL

The only thing I am certain of for this game is: I will be watching without a single penny wagered on it. I know that will make me enjoy the game even more
 
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