ST. LOUIS — Through two games, the Bruins’ No. 1 power-play unit had done nothing. In Game 1, none of the unit’s six shots got through Jordan Binnington. Jake DeBrusk was the unit’s only member to log a shot in Game 2. Charlie McAvoy and Charlie Coyle, who play on the second power-play unit, were the only Bruins to slip one-up shots past Binnington.



St. Louis’ penalty kill, playing tight and with well-placed sticks, eliminated the top unit’s No. 1 option: Patrice Bergeron as the bumper. They took away Torey Krug’s seam pass to David Pastrnak, the unit’s second look. DeBrusk, the No. 3 option as the net-front presence, never threatened Binnington.



Before Game 3, the Bruins had no choice but to fix it. It would do them no good to be stubborn and keep feeding futile pucks into dead ends.



Fortunately, they have a lethal combination: a coach with a brain optimized for the power play, and a quarterback who was born to...