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The Boston Bruins and St. Louis Blues are nearing game 5 of the Stanley Cup final, tied for 2-2, with the two cities competing for four home-and-away matches.
The series is turning into a top-of-three now, and TD Garden will host the fifth game on Thursday. The seventh game, if necessary, is scheduled for Wednesday, June 12 in Boston.
The Bruins have big question marks in their lineup before Thursday's game after injuries to defensemen Matt Grzelcyk and Zdeno Chara, the team captain.
Here's what NHL experts and columnists say about match 5:
Christopher L. Gasper, The globe of Boston: "Chara perhaps missing more of the series or being compromised for the rest of the series, the remaining five members of Chara, Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci, Brad Marchand and Tuukka Rask – all of whom were part of Team time, the Bruins raised the precious silver chalice of Lord Stanley in 2011 – they must be up.
When Chara left the fourth game with an injury after being hit in the face by a puck, the Blues' previous failure put pressure on the Bruins. Chara returned to the bench for the third period, but he did not resume his shift. The Blues 4-2 win brought the series to a tie. Uncertainty surrounding Chara's status has created uncertainty about the chances of the Bruins for the last three games of the Cup final.
Gasper wrote that the Boston teams had already seen significant injuries derail their efforts – Kendrick Perkins' torn ACLs in the 2010 NBA Finals ultimately ended with the loss of their 18th title bid – and in this case , the absence of Chara does not mean that the other core of the Bruins must elevate the team.
Bergeron, Marchand and David Pastrnak had trouble finding a constant offense. Krejci took place without a point. If neither Chara nor Grzelcyk can play, writes Gasper, it is up to these four players to lead the team.
"The Spoked-Bs have to sneak up and organize their match against the crew, that the man wearing the captain's C takes the ice cream," writes Gasper.
Fluto Shinzawa, L & # 39; athletics"In a perfect world, Chara and Grzelcyk would be ready for the fifth match. That's the playoffs of the NHL. Perfection does not exist. "
Shinzawa describes five different scenarios that Bruce Cassidy and the Bruins could face on Thursday based on the availability of their two injured defenders. The most favorable option – and the least likely – is that Chara and Grzelcyk both play, in which case Cassidy will play his ideal defensive pair together.
If Chara plays and Grzelcyk stays away, the defensive pairs will remain unchanged for Games 3 and 4. If only Grzelcyk is available, Shinzawa will find out that Cassidy matches him to Charlie McAvoy and reunites an old defensive couple from Boston University. .
If neither Chara nor Grzelcyk can play, Cassidy will likely decide to dress up veteran Steven Kampfer for the third time only in the playoffs or throw 20-year-old rookie Urho Vaakanainen into the heat to place a left-handed defender on the ice. Shinzawa writes that the last option is that Cassidy dress both players and scrapes an attacker, most likely David Backes, who has skated an average of less than ten minutes in the last four games.
"Throughout the series, Cassidy doubled Pastrnak to the second line of Backes," writes Shinzawa. "That could be the Bruins' way of proceeding if they dress seven defenders."
Tom Timmerman, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "As the series has now become a best-of-three series, the margin of error is further reduced. At this point, it could be very difficult to win between the Stanley Cup and the dead season. "
Timmerman writes that in four games in the Stanley Cup final, each team managed to face a loss in the previous game. Neither the Bruins nor the Blues have won two games in a row. Whichever team responds successfully to the fifth game, Timmerman writes, the Stanley Cup will suddenly be within their reach. In the end, the difference between the winning team and the finalist could be summed up to the smallest detail.
"The special opportunities they had (Monday) made a difference, every goal that they scored was a second chance," Cassidy told the St. Louis Dispatch. "We have to do a better job with that. When we played our match, we used our speed and our skill on failure before, created turnovers and penetrated the inside. That's the way I see it: who's ready to start and get a chance for the puck and that's what usually happens at this time of year. "
Ty Anderson, 98.5 The Sports Center: "The Bruins' solution is to scrape one of their 12 forwards and charge an extra defender."
Deviating from the standard of the NHL 12 strikers and six defensemen in an imbalance training, this does not go out of the ordinary, no matter the fifth game of the Cup final, but Anderson considers that "no matter what!" it's the best way to solve what he sees as an obvious problem. . When the Bruins lost defenders following a mid-game injury (Grzelcyk in the second game, Chara in the fourth game), they were clearly outmatched. When Cassidy had six healthy defenders available, the Bruins had an advantage.
Anderson writes that playing seven defenders helps to provide some assurance if a player is injured in the fifth game and allows the Bruins to get a left-handed shot (Vaakanainen or Jeremy Lauzon) in training without submit an inexperienced player to the NHL level. at extreme pressure by allowing Kampfer to play too.
The attacker most likely to sit down, according to Anderson? Backes.
"The truth is that the Bruins are absolutely crushed by the Blues with every change of the team and that the presence of the former captain of the Blues has done absolutely nothing to deter the Blues," writes Anderson. . "The fourth-row center, Oskar Sundqvist, came back from his suspension with as much physical strength as when he had concussed Grzelcyk in the second game.The Blues were not afraid to fight with Backes at every stop."
Pete Blackburn, CBS Sports: "The trends are in favor of the Blues, but the trends have not been exactly presented or consistent in this series. There was a huge factor of unpredictability. "
Blackburn writes that it is difficult to predict the direction of the Cup final. The Blues won the fourth game by implementing their aggressive teammate, and the Bruins fans would not have to want to press the panic button in the fifth game without Chara or Grzelcyk. Despite everything, the Blues did not play the same way as in the fourth game.
According to Blackburn, the only consistency is the Bruins' domination of the special teams, which is why the key for the Blues is to stay out of the penalty box. The Blues had 16 penalties in three games, but only played three times in the penalty area in Game 4.
St. Louis receives production from the best players on the team, while the Bruins still need more equipment from the Krejci and Bergeron lines.
"If the Blues can play in a disciplined manner, avoid taking unnecessary penalties and just playing between whistles, they should be fit," he writes.
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