The journey to the Stanley Cup Final for Blues and Bruins

The journey to the Stanley Cup Final for the St. Louis Blues and Boston Bruins started even before the 2018-19 season began, when both teams started to assemble their rosters.

For the Blues, it was a quest in trying to improve on an offense that was one of the league's worst the year before and kept them just outside of the Western Conference playoffs. To help remedy that situation, they acquired Ryan O'Reilly from the Buffalo Sabres in a blockbuster trade and were extremely active in the free-agent market by signing David Perron (for his third stint with the team), Tyler Bozak, and St. Louis native Patrick Maroon. Adding them to a lineup that already had Vladimir Tarasenko, Jaden Schwartz, Brayden Schenn and a strong defense created what looked to be a pretty strong roster on paper.

The Bruins' offseason wasn't anywhere near as active — the core of their team was already very much in place and only needed a minor tweak or two — but still ended up being impactful. Their big move was addressing a sore spot over the past couple of years by signing Jaroslav Halak to be their backup goalie for Tuukka Rask. The hope was that Halak could be a suitable backup to give Rask a little more rest throughout the season and serve as someone to maybe give their long-time starter a little bit of a push.

How did they end up at this point once the season began? Let us take a look.

The Blues' journey

The Blues' journey to the Stanley Cup Final is one of the most improbable runs we have seen in recent history simply because of how awful their first half was. Despite all of the offseason additions and the strong core that was already in place, the Blues found themselves with one of the worst records in the NHL in early January. History shows us that teams in that position that far into the season are rarely able to come back and earn a playoff spot without something drastic happening to turn things around.

For the Blues, there were two such moments.

First, there was the firing of coach Mike Yeo just 19 games into the season and the ensuing hiring of Craig Berube to replace him.

From that point on the Blues became one of the best defensive teams in the NHL and were among the top teams when it came to suppressing shots and scoring chances. That obviously played a huge role in their second-half improvement, but none of it would have mattered without consistent goaltending.

That is where Jordan Binnington comes in.

One of the Blues' biggest issues in the first half was the fact that Chad Johnson and Jake Allen failed to adequately replace Carter Hutton after his free-agency departure to Buffalo. Finally in early January, the Blues recalled Binnington from their AHL team and gave him his first start, against the Philadelphia Flyers. He recorded a shutout in that game, secured the starting job, never gave it back and finished the regular season on a 24-5-1 run with a .927 save percentage. That performance not only made him one of the three finalists for the league's Rookie of the Year Award, but it also put the Blues in contention for the Central Division title and back in the playoffs. 

They entered the postseason as one of the hottest teams in the league (10-2-2 in their final 14 games) and never slowed down once they got there.

In Round 1 they beat the Winnipeg Jets in six games thanks to a huge performance from Jaden Schwartz in Games 5 and 6 and then erased a 3-2 series deficit in Round 2 against the Dallas Stars. The latter two games of that series saw Binnington shut down the Stars and Maroon score the series-clinching goal in double overtime of Game 7. 

In the Western Conference final, they got revenge for their 2016 defeat at the hands of the San Jose Sharks, winning the series in six games. After losing Game 3 of the series on a controversial overtime goal that was the result of a missed hand pass, the Blues outscored the Sharks by a 12-2 margin in the next three games to clinch their first Stanley Cup Final appearance since the 1969-70 season.

The Bruins' journey

The Bruins' journey has been a little more traditional and expected. 

This was a team that from the beginning had Stanley Cup aspirations and played like a contender almost from the start. 

What is most impressive about their regular-season success is that they finished with one of the league's best records while playing in the league's most top-heavy division alongside two other Stanley Cup contenders. This was all despite dealing with a ton of injuries throughout the year to some of their best and most important players.

The group of Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy, Brandon Carlo, Zdeno Chara, Jake DeBrusk and Torey Krug combined to miss 112 man-games due to injury. There were times when several of those players were out of the lineup at the same time. That also does not include the time that Rask spent away from the team due to a personal matter and the fact that he lost some playing time early in the year to Halak.

Despite all of that the Bruins never stopped winning and really got on a roll in early February when they went on 17-game point streak (15-0-2). During that stretch the Bruins went all in at the trade deadline and attempted to add to their depth by acquiring Charlie Coyle from the Minnesota Wild in exchange for Ryan Donato and also getting Marcus Johansson from the New Jersey Devils. 

For as good as the Bruins played during the regular season, they were never going to catch the Tampa Bay Lightning for the top spot in the Atlantic Division and the Eastern Conference. They finished in second place and found themselves in a Round 1 matchup with the Toronto Maple Leafs. For the second year in a row, they ended up defeating the Maple Leafs in seven games. 

With the Lightning getting shockingly swept out of the playoffs by Columbus, the Bruins ended up with home-ice advantage throughout the remainder of the Eastern Conference Playoffs and had a wide open path to the Stanley Cup Final. They took advantage of it by beating the Columbus Blue Jackets in six games and then sweeping the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference Final. The latter two series saw the Bruins win seven games in a row, outscoring their opponents by a 28-9 margin. The scoring of Marchand and a Conn Smythe-worthy performance from Rask in net have been the two biggest driving forces behind that success. 

After losing Game 5 of their Round 1 series to the Maple Leafs, the Bruins own a 10-2 record in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Both losses were by just a single goal (including one in double overtime), while seven of those wins have been by multiple goals. They have been downright dominant and are entering the Stanley Cup Final playing what might be their best hockey of the season.