Storylines to follow in the 2019 Stanley Cup Final

It's not just their first-ever Stanley Cup, but it's also their first-ever win in a Stanley Cup Final game that St. Louis is looking for. The Blues played in three consecutive Stanley Cup Finals between 1968 and 1970, their first three years in the league, because of the NHL's alignment. When the league expanded from six teams to 12 during the 1967-68 season, all six expansion teams were put in the same division, meaning that one of them had to go to the Stanley Cup Final. The Blues were the best of those teams early on and reached the Final in each of their first three seasons. They lost all the series in clean sweeps, compiling an 0-12 record against the Montreal Canadiens (1968 and 1969) and Boston Bruins (1970). Their next Stanley Cup Final win will be their first. 

The Blues' first trip to the Stanley Cup Final in 49 years is a rematch of their most recent appearance, against the Boston Bruins. It was in that series that Bruins defender Bobby Orr scored one of the most memorable goals in NHL history, completed with his superman soar through the air after beating Glenn Hall in overtime of Game 4. It was Orr's only goal of the series (he still finished the playoffs with nine goals and 20 total points) and will no doubt be seen a lot over the next couple of weeks. 

If the Blues win a game on home ice, you will hear the 1982 Laura Branigan song "Gloria," the team's unofficial victory song for most of the season, blasted throughout the arena. It all started on a road trip in early January when several Blues players, while watching an NFL playoff game at a bar in Philadelphia, kept screaming for the DJ to play the song during commercial breaks. The bar went wild every time, and it has become the team's anthem ever since. 

Rask has been something of a scapegoat in Boston for several years now, always taking an overwhelming majority of the blame when the Bruins come up short in the playoffs. He has been their best player in this postseason and is authoring one of the great goaltending performances in Stanley Cup Playoff history. If the Bruins end up winning the series, he seems to be the odds-on favorite to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP. 

At the start of the new calendar year, the St. Louis Blues were going nowhere. They had one of the worst records in the league, had fired their coach and had no capable goalie. The hiring of Craig Berube, the call-up and ensuing development of Jordan Binnington and a lockdown defensive performance made them one of the hottest teams in the league in the second half of the season and carried them to the Stanley Cup Final. If they win, it would be one of the most shocking and incredible in-season turnarounds we have ever seen in the NHL. 

It has been a story in every round and in almost every series. Officiating is always going to be a focal point and a topic that draws criticism from fans, players and media, but the 2019 playoffs seem to be a low point for the people in stripes. There have been some truly dreadful missed calls and a lot of flaws with the NHL's replay system that have been exposed. All of it is going to lead to significant chances sooner rather than later, but until those changes happen there is the potential for more controversy. Based on what we have seen so far in the playoffs, there will be some kind of major issue in this series. 

There is no shortage of candidates for the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs MVP. Tuukka Rask and Brad Marchand are the early front-runners for the Boston Bruins if they win, while Vladimir Tarasenko, Jaden Schwartz and Jordan Binnington all have built strong arguments for themselves on the St. Louis Blues side. Rask and Binnington have been great in net for their respective teams, while Marchand is one of the top scorers in the playoffs. Tarasenko and Schwartz have also been game-changers for the Blues, with Schwartz already exceeding his regular-season goal total, recording two postseason hat tricks and scoring two game-winning goals. Tarasenko had eight points (and at least one point in every game) in the Blues' Western Conference Final win over the San Jose Sharks in the six-game series. 

No player will do more to make an impact in this series than Boston's resident agitator. What makes Marchand such a notable player is that he is going to be one of the best players on the ice every shift he takes — and one of the most hated. He is going to beat you on the scoreboard, he is going to get under your skin, and he is going to do something that will make everyone outside of Boston absolutely furious. 

Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, David Krejci, Zdeno Chara and even Tuukka Rask have been together for quite a while in Boston and had a ton of success, winning a championship in 2011 (Rask was the backup goalie) and returning to the Final again two years later. This will be their third Stanley Cup Final appearance and a chance for all of them to add to their legacies. Even having a couple of non-playoff seasons, this group has been part of one of the best eras in Bruins franchise history, and a second Stanley Cup would take them to legendary status in the city. 

A third-round pick by the Blues in 2011, Binnington spent the first seven years of his professional career bouncing around the minor leagues, playing in the ECHL and for several different AHL teams, including three different ones over the past three seasons. He flashed signs of potential and consistent improvement but was never really viewed as a long-term solution for the Blues' revolving door of goalies. He finally received his first real chance at the NHL level in January and has run with it, playing at a high enough level to make him a finalist for the Calder Trophy as the NHL's Rookie of the Year and to be the starting goalie for the Western Conference Champions and a Stanley Cup Finalist. 

Backes spent 10 years as one of the cornerstone pieces of the Blues organization. It was a mostly successful decade that saw the Blues win a lot of games and consistently make the playoffs but always end up falling short because they weren't quite good enough to top the Chicago Blackhawks or Los Angeles Kings in the Western Conference. Now he has a chance to win his first Stanley Cup but as a member of the Boston Bruins. If he does, it is going to come against the team that drafted him, developed him and received the best hockey of his career. He is not the same player he was when he starred in St. Louis, but he can still make an impact as a depth player. 

Tarasenko has been one of the best and most consistent goalscorers in the NHL ever since he made his debut with the Blues, and that has continued over to the playoffs. Despite his offensive brilliance he still isn't really considered the star player he should be because his team has not always been close to a championship. A big performance in this series, and perhaps even a Conn Smythe Trophy (which he could win if the Blues win the series) would give him the recognition he has long deserved. 

Bruce Cassidy was a midseason replacement behind the Boston bench two years ago, and Craig Berube took over the St. Louis Blues in the same manner this season. The Bruins have been one of the league's best teams under Cassidy, whose only previous head coaching experience in the NHL prior to this was a disappointing run in Washington, while Berube has overseen an improbable turnaround with the Blues. Cassidy was a finalist for the Jack Adams Award a year ago, and Berube has the same honor this season. Now one of them will get to add a Stanley Cup to his resume. 

There is a belief in sports that it is not how you start a season but how you finish it. These two teams are a good argument in support of that theory. Since Jan. 1 the Blues and Bruins have been two of the best teams in the NHL, owning the second- and third-best winning percentages since then (behind only the Tampa Bay Lightning) and playing some of the best defensive hockey in the league. They are not at this stage by accident. They are both outstanding teams and have been playing championship-caliber hockey for months now. 

After just barely missing the playoffs a year ago, mostly due to being one of the league's worst offensive teams, Blues general manager Doug Armstrong went all in and totally overhauled his roster in the offseason by trading for Ryan O'Reilly and then signing Patrick Maroon, Tyler Bozak and David Perron. All of those moves have paid off in a huge way. O'Reilly has been one of the team's best all-around players, while the other three have greatly improved the team's depth. If they win the Stanley Cup, Armstrong's offseason performance will have been one of the big turning points for the franchise.