The Bruins take on the St. Louis Blues Monday night in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals. Steve Buckley is a longtime Boston sports columnist, currently writing for the website "The Athletic." He spoke with WGBH News’ Judie Yuill about tonight’s game and the upcoming series. The transcript below has been edited for clarity.

Judie Yuill: So what do the Bruins have going for them in this series?

Steve Buckley: They are playing their very best hockey of this season, obviously when it counts. They've got most of their injured players back. They're playing with a purpose, and they seem to get better with each round, considering in the last round, they swept in four straight games. Hockey is very strange — in the NBA, you don't get upsets, but In the NHL, you get all kinds of upsets. But the Bruins are playing very well at the right time.

Yuill: What should Bruins fans be nervous about?

Buckley: Probably what I just said, because you never know in the Stanley Cup playoffs. The St. Louis Blues were dead last in hockey back in January. They went on a great run in the second half. They made it through three rounds of the playoffs, and if you want to look at a team that's bucked the trend in the postseason, it's the St. Louis Blues. If that continues, the St. Louis Blues will be Stanley Cup champions and the Bruins will not be.

Read More: Bruins Readying For Stanley Cup Before Puck Drops For Game 1

Yuill: So just what are the Bruins up against in facing the St. Louis Blues?

Buckley: Well again, it's a team that rallied from all kinds of inconsistencies early in the season. And it's important to note that this is the first time the Blues have been in the Stanley Cup finals since 1970. The last time they were here, they lost in four straight games to the Boston Bruins. I wrote a column on Bobby Orr the other day. And Bobby ended that series [in 1970] with that famous goal in overtime where he flew through the air. But as Bobby noted in his conversation with me, these Blues are an established, recognized NHL team, whereas the Blues of 1970 were only in their third year, they were an expansion team. And in those days, the entire West Division consisted of six expansion teams. So for the first three or four years, the team that got to the Stanley Cup finals from the West was easy pickings for the champion from the East, and that's how the Bruins won. So this is a much better team than those guys.

Read More: Bruins Begin Preparation For St. Louis Blues In Stanley Cup Final

Yuill: So let's get a prediction. Will the Bruins win their seventh Stanley Cup, or will it be the Blues winning their first?

Buckley: This is going to sound like home cooking, and I assure you it's not, because fan boy is not on my resumé — but I've followed the Bruins all the way through the postseason, and I think they just have too much depth. They have great coaching, goaltender Tuukka Rask is playing the best he's ever played, and when you've got all of that plus the “hot goalie,” you're hard to beat. So I'll be conservative and say Bruins in six, but I think it may even be shorter than that.

Yuill: Okay. Thanks for joining us, Steve.

Buckley: My pleasure.