(Photo Credit: CreditCreditWinslow Townson/USA Today Sports, via Reuters)

St. Louis Blues Win Stanley Cup In NHL Finals

The St. Louis Blues scored twice late in the first period Wednesday night and defeated the Boston Bruins 4-1 on the road to win Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals and their first NHL title.

This is as good a sports story as could be.

The Blues hadn’t reached the Stanley Cup finals since 1970, where they were beaten by … the Bruins.

They were in last place in the NHL in January, before winning 30 of their last 49 games under … interim coach Craig Berube, who took over in late November when Mike Yeo was fired.

And they did it with a rookie goalie in Jordan Binnington.

“Once we pulled it together, we were tough to beat,” said Berube, a rugged defenseman during a 17-year playing career.

The Bruins got after Binnington early, but he stopped everything that came his way. Ryan O’Reilly opened the scoring and notched a goal for the fourth game. When Alex Pietrangelo took advantage of a Boston miscue on a line change to score with eight seconds left in the first period, the Blues broke the back of the Bruins. O’Reilly won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the MVP.

When the NHL expanded from six teams to 12 at the start of the 1967-68 season, the Blues were the last of the new franchises added. They won the Western Conference three straight years under legendary coach Scottie Bowman but got beat in the Stanley Cup finals each year. They were swept each year in every finals.

Now they bring the Stanley Cup home to St. Louis, champions at last.

And that’s as good a story as there is.

 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman