Bruins favorites in pivotal Game 5 of Stanley Cup Final

Three of the past four Stanley Cup Final matchups have gone at least six games, and the 2019 Final is guaranteed to stretch at least that long after the St. Louis Blues tied the series 2-2 with a 4-2 home victory over the Boston Bruins in Game 4 on Monday night. In each game of this series, the losing team has finished with two goals.

Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com

It’s back to Beantown for Game 5 on Thursday, with the Bruins at -155 and the Blues at +135. The total is set at 5.5 goals – three of the four games in this series have topped that total. This marks the 10th time in the last 12 years and 41st time overall that the Stanley Cup Final will go at least six games. It hasn’t gone seven since Boston beat Vancouver in 2011 for the franchise’s last Cup title.

The star of Game 4 for St. Louis – which had never won a Stanley Cup Final home game previously in seven tries – was Ryan O’Reilly with two goals. He gave the Blues a 1-0 lead early in the first and scored the go-ahead goal at 10:38 of the second for his first career multi-goal game in the playoffs. It was the second multi-goal game in a Stanley Cup Final in Blues history as Red Berenson scored twice in Game 3 at Montreal in 1968.

Vladimir Tarasenko and Brayden Schenn had the other Blues goals on Monday. It was Tarasenko’s 11th of these playoffs and 33rd of his playoff career. That’s two shy of the franchise record. After a very shaky Game 3 in which he was pulled, rookie netminder Jordan Binnington bounced back with 21 saves. He’s now 7-2 after a loss in these playoffs.

Boston can take some solace that it twice fought back from one-goal deficits in Game 4. Charlie Coyle’s ninth of this postseason tied it 1-1 at 13:14 of the first, and Brandon Carlo’s short-handed goal at 14:19 of the second made it 2-2. Amazingly, it was the first short-handed goal by a defenseman in the Stanley Cup Final in 19 years. It was just the 10th short-handed goal by a defenseman in Bruins playoff history.

Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask allowed three goals on 37 shots in Game 4 as the final goal was on an empty net. And it’s not year clear if Boston defenseman Zdeno Chara will play Game 5 after he took a puck to the face on Monday night and suffered a reported broken jaw.

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