The Boston Bruins will host the St. Louis Blues in game seven of the Stanley Cup Final on Wed., June 12th in a winner-take-all battle to be crowned 2018/19 NHL champions. The Bruins forced a seventh and deciding contest with a 5-1 triumph at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis on June 9th. The Bruins are seeking their seventh cup win in club history while St. Louis is hunting for their first since making their NHL debut back in 1967/68. That was the year the the league originally doubled in size from six to 12 franchises.
This is the 17th time in history that a Stanley Cup Final series has gone the full seven games. The Bruins earned home-ice advantage after finishing with the second-best record in the Atlantic Division, Eastern Conference and the league this season behind the Tampa Bay Lightning. The last time Boston went the full seven games in a Stanley Cup final was in the 2010/11 season when they downed the Vancouver Canucks 4-0 on the road at Rogers Arena. This is the first time a seventh game of a final series will take place in Boston in the 95 years since the club was formed.
Overall, the home team has won 12 times in the seventh game of a final while the visitors have been successful on four occasions. However, the last two game sevens were won by the road team as the Bruins beat the Canucks in 2010/11 and the Pittsburgh Penguins took care of the Detroit Red Wings in the 2008/09 campaign. The Bruins own the league record for the most game-sevens in history with 27 as well as wins at 15 and have gone 14-8 in Boston. The Blues have played 17 game-sevens with a record of 9-8 including 4-6 as the away team.
Both clubs have won a seventh game in the playoffs this season as the Bruins beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-1 in the first round after trailing 3-2 in the series and The Blues also fought back from 3-2 down to squeak past the Dallas Stars 2-1 in double overtime at home in the second round. Boston captain Zdeno Chara is expected to make NHL history on Wednesday night when he skates in his 14th game-seven. The game will feature a goaltending battle between the Bruins’ 32-year old veteran Tuukka Rask and the Blues’ Jordan Binnington, who’s a 25-year-old rookie.
Rask’s record in this year’s postseason is 3-0 when facing elimination with a 95.3 save percentage and a 1.34 goals-against average. He also leads the league in the playoffs with a 93.8 save percentage. The Blues will need to stay out of the penalty box if possible since the Bruins possess the best power-play in the league in the playoffs with a success rate of 32.9 per cent. Meanwhile, the Blues have killed off just 75 per cent of their penalties while their power-play is struggling at 16.3 per cent with just one goal in the series while having the man advantage.
On paper, it looks like all of the advantages are leaning Boston’s way but anything can happen in a game seven. History also points to the home team having the upper hand but St. Louis have been warriors on the road during this year’s playoffs with an excellent record of 9-3.