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SPORTS Friday 31 May 2019
Hate builds up between Blues, Bruins in Stanley Cup Final

Continued from Page 17 bit more physical than we you continue to press and
were.” press and press, it’s hard for
The NHL has consistently The Bruins weren’t shrinking the D-men. I thought we
emphasized skill and speed violets, though. Featuring a did a good job of continu-
of late but sometimes you blue line with four players ing to do that.
can steamroll your way to 6 feet tall or shorter, Char- The Pittsburgh Penguins
a playoff victory, which the lie McAvoy was throwing and Chicago Blackhawks
Blues did 3-2 in overtime the body like someone sped their way to the Stan-
Wednesday night to tie the not afraid to hit above his ley Cup in recent years.
series at a game apiece. weight class. The Blues are looking to fol-
The league still sells hatred, The hits continued to take low in the heavy tracks of
and it didn’t take long for their toll. The Blues were al- the champion Los Ange-
that to build up between ready without Thomas and les Kings and Washington
these heavy-hitting teams. defenseman Vince Dunn, Capitals, who pounded
“They’re aggressive, and top-line winger Vladi- their opponents on the way
they’re big, they hit well mir Tarasenko missed a big to the title.
and we’re a big team and chunk of the second pe- After earning the first play-
we hit, so there’s going to riod. Bozak went down the off victory in franchise his-
be a lot of chirping, a lot tunnel to close the stick-in- Boston Bruins’ Torey Krug, top, checks St. Louis Blues’ Robert tory by turning the Bruins
of hitting going, a lot of duced cut on his face but Thomas to the ice during the third period in Game 1 of the NHL black and blue, the Blues
scrums,” St. Louis forward returned not long after. hockey Stanley Cup Final, Monday, May 27, 2019, in Boston. found a recipe that could
Patrick Maroon said. Bozak was no worse for the Associated Press lead to the first champion-
At the moment, it is ad- wear. Just part of the cost a hospital for tests. Boston, defenseman Colton Paryko ship.
vantage St. Louis. The Blues of doing business. down to five defenseman, said. “Obviously they went “We’ve just got to contin-
outhustled the Bruins and The same couldn’t be said appeared to tire late. down a D-man and when ue hitting,” Maroon said.
delivered more blows in for Grzelcyk, who went to “It’s a long series,” Blues you have five D-men and “That’s our team.”q
grabbing home-ice ad-
vantage with Game 3
coming up Saturday night
in St. Louis.
“I think we’ve been doing
that all playoffs, no? It’s
just our style,” Sundqvist
said. “That’s how we play
and when we do it, we’re
good, we’re winning pucks
back and we’re creating
offense. That’s part of our
game.”
Knowing that, Backes said
the Bruins want to “match
physicality, stare them
in the eyes and go right
through it when they’re
trying to amp that up and
have an answer at times
when we have the op-
portunity to be physical on
their guys.”
St. Louis was credited with
49 hits in a game filled
with aches and pains.
Sundqvist’s hit on Grzelcyk
drew a boarding penalty
and the Boston defense-
man needed help to get
off the ice. Blais and Jaden
Schwartz also each ran
into goaltender Tuukka
Rask and both were whis-
tled for interference.
“We can’t let them push
us around,” Bruins defense-
man Brandon Carlo said.
“We can’t retaliate after
the whistle. They were right
on top of us. We kind of felt
like whenever we turned
around to move up the
ice, they were right there,
doing a good job with their
sticks and playing a little