Boston Bruins Have ‘Empty Feeling’ After Game 7 Loss

The Boston Bruins played their worst game of the postseason at the most inopportune time. Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. Now Boston is left to think about what could have been as they fell to the St. Louis Blues in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final by a final score of 4-1.

“It’s an empty feeling. It’s a long year,” said Bruce Cassidy. “Someone had to win and someone had to lose and we came out on the wrong side of it. It’s not the way you picture it. It’s as simple as that.”

Prior to Game 7, all the Bruins players talked about was how they were motivated by the failure of not winning in the 2013 Cup Final against the Chicago Blackhawks. That loss to Chicago cut the Bruins deeply. That memory, especially on home ice, was something the Bruins did not want to experience ever again. But once again the Bruins are left to taste the bitter bite of defeat after watching another team, win the Cup in their barn.

“It’s hard to find words. It’s not easy,” said Zdeno Chara. “I’m sure everyone pictured it differently. We believed that it was there for us. That’s sports. You have to take those and move on.”

There are so many similarities between the loss in 2013 to Chicago and the loss in 2019 to St. Louis. The most obvious one is the feeling of heartbreak. However, with the Bruins being an older team, you have to wonder how many more cracks this group has at the Stanley Cup as forward Patrice Bergeron noted post-game.

“Yeah, I think they are both pretty similar in a way,” said Bergeron. “It’s heartbreaking. You work so hard to get to this point and, you know, it’s tough. There are guys that this could have been our last shot. This stings even more.”

Bruins forward Brad Marchand took the loss particularly hard.  Boston Hockey Now’s Jimmy Murphy was inside the Bruins locker room post-game, and Marchand was visibly upset as he was in tears saying he had “his dream taken away.”

“I don’t know,” said Marchand, who could not describe his emotions after the game. “Just, you know, it’s tough to describe that heartbreak, but you know, we worked hard. It just didn’t go our way.”

Boston center David Krejci, who won the Cup Final with the Bruins in 2011 but now has lost it in 2013 and 2019 was blunt.

“Well obviously it hurts,” said Krejci. “But, it’s, it just hurts and it’s going to hurt for a while. Been there before, haven’t gotten over it yet. So, I don’t think I’ll ever get over this one either.”

While Bergeron is right Chara was a bit more optimistic and does believe this team may have one more run left in them.

“We can be proud of what we’ve done, but we just came short,” Chara added. “Sometimes those downs make you stronger and I believe this team still has potential to get back to the Final and get it done.”

For now and likely until they can erase this memory with a Stanley Cup win, defenseman Charlie McAvoy – hardly able to speak because he was so overcome by emotion – summed up how the players felt after the loss to the Blues in Game 7:

“It’s devastation.”

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