Preview: The Bruins look to turn up the pressure and take control in Game 4

Just the facts

When: Tonight, 8ish PM

Where: Enterprise Center - St. Louis, Missouri

How to follow: NBC, CBC, TVAS, Sportsnet, 98.5 The Sports Hub

Rival SBN site: St. Louis Gametime

Game notes

• I’d expect tonight’s game to start closer to 8 PM than Game 3 did, but you never know. With this one being broadcast on NBC (instead of NBCSN) we may get another bit of a delay. WE’LL SEE.
• It’s always funny to see playoff games called “pivotal,” because really, every playoff game is pivotal. Still, if there’s one game in this series that COULD be called pivotal, this is it: a Bruins win sends them home needing one win for the Cup, while a Blues win sends us back to Boston for a three-game series.
• That’s why it’s kind of funny to look back at Game 3: the Bruins pulverized the Blues in a number of different ways, but St. Louis is still very much in this series. Hockey is fun.
• Craig Berube spent some time yesterday complaining about the officiating, which isn’t surprising. It’s par for the course in the playoffs. Bruce Cassidy did the same thing in the first round against Toronto. Most of the time, the coaches probably don’t even believe what they’re saying, but they’re trying to get the ear of the refs and the league. Will it work? Probably not, since most of the penalties St. Louis has taken have been of the “really obvious” or “pretty dumb” variety.
• All eyes are on Jordan Binnington tonight, as the rookie get shelled and pulled in Game 3. The consensus from hockey people is “he’ll bounce back,” with no real reasoning behind it other than that’s what he’s done before. Still, he looked horrible in Game 3, and wasn’t much better in Games 1 and 2. He still has it in him to steal one, of course, so Bruins fans shouldn’t count him out.
• I would assume the Bruins won’t be making any lineup changes tonight, unless there’s more to the Charlie McAvoy knee scare (though that doesn’t appear likely).
• For St. Louis, Oskar Sundqvist is eligible to return tonight. I’m not sure that he automatically goes back in, however, as Zach Sanford was pretty impressive (all things considered) in Game 3. He played a tough game, earned an assist, and was generally noticeable in a good way (not an easy thing to do in a 7-2 loss).
• It will be interesting to see if St. Louis approaches this game any differently. They came out throwing the body at everything that moved in Game 3, then kept taking dumb penalties that essentially took them out of the game. One can’t help but wonder if they’ll be a little more conservative with the fear of a 100% Bruins power play in the back of their minds. Probably not, but if they DO tone it down, it’s an advantage for the Bruins.
• Two of the Bruins’ three big guns turned it around on Saturday night, as Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak both ended up with goals. Brad Marchand didn’t, but made some good plays moving the puck on the PP. Ideally, this gets those three going at 5v5 as well.

See ya tonight!