Ryan O’Reilly and David Perron scored while Jordan Binnington held the Bruins to just a single goal to bring the St. Louis Blues within a win of their first Stanley Cup Championship with a 2-1 victory at TD Garden on Thursday night.
Jake DeBrusk had the lone Boston goal on 39 shots on net.
The Bruins did just about everything except score in the first period, during which time they outshot the Blues, 17-8, behind a lift from captain Zdeno Chara’s presence in the lineup.
Trouble was, Jordan Binnington resembled the goalie who put St. Louis on his back and carried it to the Stanley Cup Final in the first place over the opening 20 minutes, battening down the hatches on numerous high-danger scoring chances for Boston.
Tuukka Rask was tested as well, slamming the door shut on a Blues power play near the end of the frame -- a power play which Chara played 1:21 on, part of a somewhat-reduced role thanks in part to Bruce Cassidy dressing seven defensemen.
It didn’t take long in the second period for the Blues to make a dent in Rask after peppering him late in the opening frame. O’Reilly scored 0:44 into the period -- similar to his scoring 0:43 into the first period in Game 4 -- to break open the game’s scoring.
St. Louis proceeded to be outshot by Boston, 8-5, over the remainder of the second period. The final shot of the period for the Blues, however, wasn’t turned away by Rask.
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Rather, it was far and away David Krejci’s most productive moment of the series, when he dove in front of an Alex Pietrangelo shot to keep the Bruins down just one entering the locker room.
Perron put the Blues up 2-0 at 10:36 of the third, seconds after Noel Acciari was blatantly tripped. The non-call by officials was met with a showering of debris on the Garden ice by frustrated fans, causing a brief delay in the game.
At long last, Boston got on the scoreboard at 13:32 of the third, when DeBrusk became the first Bruin to solve Binnington off a feed from Torey Krug.
Game 6 is Sunday night at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis.
