St. Louis Blues goalie Jordan Binnington capped off one of the great rookie runs in NHL history Wednesday night. He stopped 32 shots, and Conn Smythe Trophy winner Ryan O'Reilly scored for the fourth straight game Wednesday night to lead the Blues to a 4-1 victory over Boston in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final and their first NHL championship, the AP reports. "To bring a Cup to a city for a first time is crazy. Tough to put into words," forward Jaden Schwartz said on the ice of the new Boston Garden as players and team officials took their turns posing with the cup. "These fans have been waiting a long time. It's exciting. We're going to have a lot of fun with it."
O'Reilly added an assist, Alex Pietrangelo had a goal and an assist, and Brayden Schenn and Zach Sanford also scored for St. Louis, which had the worst record in the league in early January but won 30 of their final 49 regular-season games. "Once we pulled it together, we were tough to beat," said coach Craig Berube, who took over when Mike Yeo was fired in November. He is the fourth coach in the past 11 years hired in midseason to lead his team to the NHL title. Behind Binnington, the Blues eliminated the Jets in six games, the Stars in seven, and then knocked out the Sharks in six to reach the final for the first time since 1970. That year, the Blues lost in Boston. "It's pretty crazy how things come full circle like that," Sanford said. (The team's hometown paper celebrated a little too early.)
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