Boston Bruins

BHN Staff Predictions: Be Prepared For A Long And Hard Series; Bruins Consensus Pick

Published

5 years ago

May 24, 2019

The Boston Bruins and St. Louis Blues will finally drop the puck on the 2019 Stanley Cup Final Monday night (8 PM, NBC) at TD Garden. The Bruins will have waited eleven days by then and the Blues six, but we here at BostonHockeyNow, can’t wait any longer to give you our Final predictions! So without further ado, here’s whom we see raising Lord Stanley when all is said and done.

Jimmy Murphy – The Bruins and their fans best buckle up for a war of attrition and a long series because this Blues team is no Cinderella team like the Hurricanes. They’re legit and as head coach Bruce Cassidy said recently, they “mirror” the Bruins. They’re physical and play a heavy game; they’re fast, and they have a goalie Jordan Binnington, that like Tuukka Rask, is in one of the zones that wins Stanley Cups and gets talked about many years down the road. All of that being said, the Blues are lacking one thing the Bruins have, and that will be essential in the Stanley Cup Final: Experience.

Captain Zdeno Chara, Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci, Brad Marchand, and Tuukka Rask have all won a Stanley Cup and been to two Stanley Cup Finals in the last eight years. With the exception of Rask – who has been lights out since the start – throughout these playoffs, the veteran core has had some down nights, but they have stepped up in the clutch and any potential elimination games. They will do that again in the Cup Final and more importantly in a do-or-die Game 7.

Prediction: Bruins in 7

Tom Fitzgerald – Be prepared for a grind. Be prepared to stand the entire series. And be prepared to watch seven games. I believe this Cup Final will come down to one simple but significant thing: goaltending. Yes, obvious, but we have two goalies in Binnington and Rask who are on amazing playoff runs.

Just take a took at Binnington’s numbers over the past three games: 3-0-0, .974 save percentage, one shutout, two goals against. These numbers are only surpassed by Rask’s epic seven-game run: 7-0-0, .961 save percentage, nine goals against, two shutouts. Rask leads Boston to an impossibly tight Stanley Cup win, but it will take seven knock ’em-down grind it out games to achieve.

Prediction: Bruins in 7

Jim Biringer – This is one of the harder Stanley Cup Finals to predict. The Boston Bruins and St. Louis Blues are mirror images of each other. Both teams forecheck hard; have a good goaltender; great depth scoring, and constantly hit their opponents into submission. The Bruins looked unstoppable after their sweep of Carolina, but St. Louis has been on a historic run. The Bruins core leadership has been here before and knows what it takes and despite St. Louis having many of the intangibles needed to win, the Bruins’ experience could be the most important factor.

Prediction: Bruins in 6

Alex Thomas – Back in September, I bought in on the Blues as a Cup contender because of their astute summer additions. They had the forward depth to finally match one of the league’s best defenses, with only goaltending as a question mark. I picked St. Louis to beat the Bruins in six games back on October 3 as part of our preseason picks over at MurphysHockeyLaw.net, and I can’t back away from that now. This Cinderella story finds a happy ending, as St. Louis claims their first Stanley Cup title.

Prediction: Blues in 6