ST. LOUIS _ In a city that seemed ready to explode, the Bruins spoiled St. Louis' party on Sunday night, taking the lead on a first-period goal on a two-man advantage to put the Blues dreams on hold for at least three nights at best, another season at the worst, with a 5-1 win in Game 6 on Sunday night at Enterprise Center.
Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final is Wednesday at TD Garden in Boston, where the Blues have already won two of the three games played. If the Blues can win, it will end a 51-season wait for their first Stanley Cup. If they lose, the team's agony will stretch to at least another season.
With a massive crowd at a viewing part outside and a raucous crowd inside, the Blues fell behind in the first period and, despite four power plays in the first two periods, couldn't get even. Boston got a goal early in the third to take a 2-0 lead and Karson Kuhlman, making his first appearance in the series, score midway through the third to make it 3-0.
Though the arena was half-empty at the final horn, the ones that remained chanted "Let's go Blues!" and "We want the Cup!" in the final minute.
Ryan O'Reilly scored with 7:59 to play to put the Blues on the board. It was O'Reilly's seventh goal of the postseason and Alex Pietrangelo got an assist for his 15th in the playoffs.
The Blues' win in Game 5 gave them two chances to get the one win needed for the trophy that has eluded them since they came into the league in 1967. No team in the NHL has waited so long for its first championship.
The Blues had four power plays in the game, which produced 12 of their 19 shots on goal in the first two periods, but they couldn't score on any of them. The Blues power play has had issues throughout the playoffs, converting at just 17.1 percent, the 11th-best in the playoffs, and once again, their man advantages were marked by a lot of passing around the perimeter and the feeling that someone else is always going to have a better shot.
Boston got its first goal during a five-on-three power play after Brayden Schenn had been sent off for board and then, 1:02 later, Ryan O'Reilly was called for delay of game when he backhanded a puck into the stands on an attempted clearance.
Twenty-one seconds into the five-on-three, David Pastrnak made a cross-ice pass to Brad Marchand, low to Jordan Binnington's left, and he one-timed it in for just his second goal of the series. (The other was into an empty net.)
The Blues killed off the remainder of the penalty.
The Blues had two power plays of their own in the first period. The first came 2:42 into the game when Sean Kuraly was called for delay of game, and the Blues had three shots on goal but couldn't score. The best chance came on a shot by Vince Dunn that was stopped by Tuukka Rask and the rebound came to Schenn, who looked to have a good chance but Rask blocked that shot too.
Early in Boston's power play, the Blues almost had a short-handed goal when O'Reilly stole a puck and made two nice taps on it to get clear, but when he came in on his backhand, he couldn't control the puck and it went wide.
The Blues also had a power play when Zdeno Chara was called for interference with 1:39 to go. The Blues didn't score at the end of the period and couldn't score on the 21 seconds that carried over to the second.
Boston went up 2-0 on a goal by Brandon Carlo from outside the knuckleballed its way past Binnington and then it went to 3-0 on a shot from outside by Kuhlman, making his first appearance of the series, that hit the top corner. O'Reilly scored on a rebound of a shot by Pietrangelo that first was ruled no goal but the overhead angle on the replay show it was on edge and crossed the line.
But Blues' comeback was derailed when Pastrnak scored 2:05 later after Sammy Blais lost a battle for the puck behind the goal. The Blues pulled Binnington for a sixth attacker with 4:10 to play and got an empty-net goal by Chara with 2:19 to play.
