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Who's to blame: Lack of composure buries Blues in Game 1

In the days leading up to Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final, the St. Louis Blues were preaching one thing above the rest: discipline.

Staying out of the box would be absolutely crucial against a Bruins power play that entered the matchup clicking at around 34 percent — by far the best rate in the postseason — but that wouldn’t be in the cards in Game 1 for Craig Berube’s group, who seemed to let the big stage influence their emotions for the worse.

St. Louis did its part in the composure category through the first three rounds, averaging the fewest amount of penalty minutes (just over six) per contest of all playoff clubs, but took five minor penalties against the Bruins in Game 1.

There’s no one individual to blame for what Blues fans are praying is a blip on the discipline radar on Monday, as five different St. Louis players including David Perron, Joel Edmundson, Oskar Sundqvist, Sammy Blais and Robert Thomas picked up PIMs on the night.

“Five penalties takes a lot of guys out of the game and burns up a lot of energy from other guys that are killing all the time,” Berube said to reporters after the game.

“It’s too much. We’ve got to be better there. We’ve got to be more disciplined. Calls are calls. That’s the way it goes. We’re not gonna complain about ’em. We’ve just got to be better.”

Sundqvist’s particularly dumb cross-check on Connor Clifton, which led to Charlie McAvoy’s game-tying marker midway through the second, proved to be the most costly on the scoresheet by far, but the Blues were also visibly shaken and overly-loose with their discipline, something we haven’t seen from St. Louis at all in these playoffs and saw very rarely throughout the regular season.

The one power-play goal they allowed wasn’t necessarily the back-breaker, though it was obviously big, but the parade to the box also stymied the rhythm of one of the postseason’s most efficient 5-on-5 squads.

Even goaltender Jordan Binnington, who has been as cold-blooded and even-keeled as they come, was noticeably rattled at several points throughout the contest, even mixing in a little forearm shiver on David Backes during (at least) one net-front scrum.

“We’ve got to be more disciplined and composed. Stuff’s gonna happen, and you’ve got to handle it,” Binnington said postgame.

Berube praised his group during media day on Sunday for avoiding post-whistle skirmishes and playing between the whistles, and his group repaid his vote of confidence by putting up by far their most undisciplined effort of the playoffs.

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