What is there to say about this game? The Canucks were 60 minutes away from winning the Stanley Cup. All they had to do was do something a team had not done this series: win on the road. And it all came collapsing down in a span of four minutes early in the game as Vancouver fell to Boston 5-2 in Game 6 Monday night.

Just as Roberto Luongo played solid by earning two shutouts in this series, he has been just as bad in Boston. He has been pulled off the ice twice in the Stanley Cup Final including last night. He allowed four goals in a span of 4:14. I felt bad for fans who missed the game because if they did, they missed essentially the entire game. That was a Stanley Cup record for fastest span of four goals, beating the Montreal record of 5:29 in 1956 against Detroit.

The Bruins were also the first team since the 1996 Avalanche to score four times in the first period. 12 teams share the record for most first period goals by one team.

The first goal came at 5:31 when Brad Marchand fired a wrist shot over the glove of Luongo. It was important for Vancouver to score the first goal, because if Boston scored (in case they did) it would keep the crowd loud and into the game. Things only got louder as they scored 35 seconds later when Rich Peverely and Johnny Boychuk assisted on Milan Lucic’s fifth playoff goal.

The third goal of the game was scored when Andrew Ference scored on the power play at 8:35. His shot from the blue line went through a screen and Luongo couldn’t react to the puck in time. A pair of Mikes (Recchi and Ryder) were credited with the assists. The final shot Luongo would see would actually be one he didn’t see. Tomas Kaberle fired a slapshot on goal but was tipped by Ryder at 9:45. Coach Alain Vigneault pulled Luongo in favor of Cory Schneinder after the fourth goal. Luongo would finish the game with five saves on eight shots in 8:35. Schneinder played the remainder of the game and made 21 saves on 21 shots.

The only goal Schneider would allow would come in the third period at 6:59 when David Krejci reached the dozen-goal mark of the playoffs when he scored on a wrist shot. Recchi earned his third assist and Kaberle his second of the night on the goal.

Vancouver would score twice in the third period. The ghost that was Henrik Sedin lit the lamp for the first time this series and the first time since Game 1 of the conference final against San Jose almost a month ago. The power play goal at :22 of the third period was assisted by Christian Ehrhoff and Daniel Sedin.

The final goal of the game would come at 17:34 when Daniel Sedin and Jannik Jansen assisted on Maxim Lapierre’s third goal of the playoffs.

With his third win of the series, Tim Thomas made 35 saves on 37 shots. The final game of the season, with the Stanley Cup on the line, will be played Wednesday night at 8:00 p.m. on NBC. Viewers can see pregame and post-game coverage on Versus.

Tags: Boston Bruins, NHL Playoffs, Stanley Cup, Vancouver Canucks

There are a lot of new angles and plot lines heading into tonight’s Game 4 between Boston and Vancouver. The most important question fans will have is if Vancouver can bounce back after getting their butts handed to them Monday night?

That answer can only be found in the Canucks locker room. There hasn’t been a blowout like that in the Stanley Cup Final since Colorado thrashed Florida 8-1 in Game 2 of the 1996 series. The Avalanche went on to sweep the Panthers, but the Bruins did it to make the series 2-1. The Bruins have the momentum and they might have a chance to even the series, which would be huge for them. Canucks bench boss Alain Vigneault didn’t pull Roberto Luongo and the last three goals he allowed at the end of the game might get into his head if the Bruins happen to score first.

After the hit by Aaron Rome on Nathan Horton has a lot of dynamics. In my opinion, the hit was dirty. While it was dirty, blame goes to both players. Rome left his feet and took advantage of as vulnerable Horton. Horton gets some of the blame because not only was his head down in the middle of the ice, he spent too much time admiring the pass he made instead of keeping his head up to avoid the check. Horton was a solid player who had 17 points in the playoffs, and his offense will be missed. Claude Julien has yet to announce who will replace him, but the player likely to return to the lineup is Tyler Seguin. Seguin missed Game 3 as a healthy scratch, so look for him to see 10-12 minutes of ice time as well as action on the power play.

While we are on the topic of special teams, where is the Canucks power play? The went 9-24 against San Jose and had one of the best power play units in the league all season long, but against the Bruins they are 1-16. We had made fun of the Bruins got having a PP success rate in the single digits, but in their last two games they have scored three power play goals and two shorthanded goals. Vancouver is getting shots on goal, but they are being careless with the puck with bad passing and turning the puck over. They have to make quick passes, find the open man slashing towards the net and keep the puck in the Boston zone.

Game 4 has an 8:00 p.m. start on Versus.

Tags: Boston Bruins, NHL Playoffs, Stanley Cup, Vancouver Canucks

Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final was just as exciting as Game 1. The difference was there was no biting of fingers, more scoring, and an ending that happened so quickly that if you went to grab a cold beverage as the puck dropped you missed the game winning goal in overtime.

Vancouver takes a 2-0 series lead heading from one ocean to the other into Boston as Alexandre Burrows recorded points on all three goals to defeat Boston 3-2 in overtime. Most people think he should not even have played in the game considering his controversial incident Wednesday night. Had he not played, the result of last nights game could have been different.

We didn’t have to wait 59 minutes for the first goal to be scored, as Burrows got the first goal of the game on the power play at 12:12 of the first period. Earning the second assist, Sami Salo kept the puck in the Boston zone as the Bruins tried to clear the puck but Salo used his body to keep the puck in the zone. He passed the puck to Chris Higgins who then fed Burrows with a wrist shot that went past Tim Thomas.

The only scoring of the second period came in a span of 2:35 when Boston was able to solve Roberto Luongo twice. The first came when Milan Lucic snuck the puck past the right leg of a sprawling Luongo at the 9:00 mark of the second period. His goal was assisted by Johnny Boychuk and David Krejci.

It is no secret that the Bruins have had an atrocious power play in the playoffs, but that all changed when Mark Recchi became the oldest player to score a goal in the Stanley Cup Final. The Bruins have a 8.6 percent success rate in the playoffs on the power play. They are 14th of the 16 playoff teams and the two teams worse than them (New York and Pittsburgh) did not make it past the first round. At age 43 years and 123 days, he overtook Igor Larinov’s record when The Professor scored the game-winning goal in triple over time in 2002 at Carolina. Recchi was screening Luongo and was able to deflect the puck into the net at 11:35.

The game tying goal was scored by Daniel Sedin at 9:37. A Sedin found the scoresheet for the first time in the playoffs when Zdeno Chara lost the puck behind his own goal line and the Canucks were able to set up shop in the Bruins zone which resulted with Daniel Sedin finding a wide open net after a couple blocked shots in front of Tim Thomas which led to the Bruins goalie being out of position.

As stated earlier, if you either went to get a beverage flipped the channel, or even blinked during the intermission, you would have missed the game winning goal by the same trio who were in on the game tying goal: Burrows, Alexander Edler, and Daniel Sedin. 11 seconds into the overtime period, Boston win the faceoff, the defensive partner of Chara sent the puck up the boards. Sedin passed the puck to Burrows as he was skating into the zone. Thomas made the mistake of playing the angle too aggressively which led to him being out of position. Burrows was then able to bank the puck off the boards behind the net to give him extra space between himself and Chara and was able to sneak the puck into the net to give his team a 2-0 series lead.

In addition to Thomas being too far out of position (he was still behind the goal line when the puck entered the net), Chara made the mistake of not finding a way to take down Burrows to keep him away from the puck. It was the second-fastest game winning goal in the Stanley Cup Final history, two seconds slower than Brian Skrudland’s game winner for Montreal against Calgary in 1986.

Thomas made 30 saves on 33 shots. Luongo stopped 28 of 30 shots for the win. Each championship series since the end of the lockout has seen a team take a 2-0 series lead. The only team not to win the Stanley Cup was the 2009 Detroit Red Wings. Going even further back to the modern age of the NHL since the 1967 expansion. Game 3 is tomorrow night in Boston at 8:00 p.m. on Versus.

Tags: Boston Bruins, NHL Playoffs, Stanley Cup, Vancouver Canucks

Prime Time hockey on NBC made its’ return last night for Game 1 between the Bruins and the Canucks. The game was exciting from the opening puck drop until the final whistle. Both teams brought maximum effort and left everything on the ice. Both teams had several scoring chances and the goalies of both teams made fantastic saves to keep the game scoreless for over 59 minutes. The game ended at 10:57 p.m. EDT, the only people more excited than Canucks fans were television staff at the NBC affiliates across the United States as their late local news is broadcasted at 11:00 p.m.

The game last night was the highest-rated Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final in 12 years. It drew a preliminary overnight rating of 3.2, the highest rating for the opening game of the championship round since 1999 when Buffalo and Dallas drew a 3.7 rating. It was 14 percent higher than last year’s Chicago-Philadelphia matchup and 114 percent higher than the last time a team from Canada played for the Stanley Cup when Anaheim-Ottawa drew an abysmal 1.5 rating. In Boston, Game 1 had a higher rating than last year’s NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers. In Boston, it drew a 25.5 rating compared to the 19.1 rating in basketball a year ago. It was only the sixth time in the expansion era that Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final ended in a shutout. All five previous Game 1 shutout winners went on to win the Stanley Cup (’08 Red Wings, ’03 Devils, ’01 Avalanche, ’84 Oilers and ’83 Islanders).
If Game 1 is any indication of how the rest of the series will go, scoring will be at a premium and the first goal of each game will be important. Roberto Luongo made 36 saves while Tim Thomas stopped 33 pucks for Boston. The 1-0 victory for Vancouver over Boston was a complete 180 from last year’s final between the Flyers and Blackhawks when Chicago won 6-5. Just as much as the fans like to see the exciting goals, fans can appreciate both goalies standing on their heads and matching each other save for save.

The shocking stat of the night was both teams going 0-5 on the power play. It’s more shocking for the Vancouver as their power play scoring rate was near 30 percent entering Game 1. Boston couldn’t capitalize on a 5-3 that lasted over 1:30 in the second period. In addition, both teams combined for 13 penalties in the first two periods, but there were zero penalties called in the third. Boston were called for seven infractions while Vancouver took six penalties.

The game was also very physical, both teams used the boards to their advantage to apply bone-shaking hits, hip checks that would leave the recepient flying head over heels, and also a controversial biting incident that left Patrice Bergeron accusing Alex Burrows of biting his finger after a face wash. As of Thursday afternoon, Burrows will not be fined or suspended as the NHL was unable to find inconclusive evidence that Burrows did indeed bite Bergeron. Maybe they don’t have HD television in Toronto in the War Room as we have seen them have opposing viewpoints on gooals scored during the regular season.

The only goal scored occured with 19 seconds left whenn Raffi Torres took a pass from Jannik Hansen to leave Thomas frozen as he used his forehand to guide the puck into the net. The bigger assist goes to Ryan Kesler, who was able to stay on-sides as he knocked the puck to himself and found a wide-open Hansen to set up the only goal of the game.

Game 2 is Saturday night at 8:00 p.m. on NBC.

Tags: Boston Bruins, NHL Playoffs, Stanley Cup, Vancouver Canucks