For the first time since 1972, the Stanley Cup will be taking up residence in the city of Boston. Last night in Game Seven the Bruins clinched the first Cup for Boston in 39 years by beating the Vancouver Canucks 4-0 in Vancouver. For good luck before the start of the contest, injured Bruin Nathan Horton squeezed a water bottle full of melted TD Garden Ice onto the ice at Rodgers Arena for good luck. The move paid off.
Play was pretty even through the first half of the opening period. Then things changed at the 14:37 mark when Patrice Bergeron scored his 5ht of the playoffs, and what would turn out to be the eventual cup winner, off a great play. It started with Brad Marchand getting to the puck after Vancouver had won a faceoff. Marchand then spun away from Canucks checkers and slid it over to Bergeron who beat a stunned Luongo for the goal. That was the only scoring in the opening period. In that opening period, Vancouver outshot the Bruins 8-5, but Boston got the only goal. The Canucks had maybe one quality chance on Thomas in that opening period.
Moving on to the middle period, things went from bad to worse for the Vancouver Canucks. The Canucks outshot Boston 13-8 in the 232nd period but Boston would score twice in the period to take a 3-0 lead. The Bruins took a 2-0 lead at the 12:13 mark thanks to Brad Marchand's 10th of the playoffs. Then Zedeno Chara got called for interference, allowing Vancouver its first powerplay. The Canucks not only came up empty on the powerplay but allowed this beautiful shorthanded goal by Patrice Bergeron:
The goal came at the 17:39 mark and was Bergerons 2nd of the game and 6th of the playoffs. Boston would put the icing on the cake in the 3rd period when Brad Marchand scored his 2nd of the night and 11th of the playoffs into an empty net at the 17:16 mark of the 3rd period. At the end of it all Roberto Luongo stopped 17 of 20 Bruins shots, while his counterpart Tim Thomas stopped all 37 shots the Canucks threw at him.
It was no real surprise to anybody that at the end of it all Tim Thomas was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the MVP of the Playoffs. This year Thomas put up incredable numbers, starting 25 games and had a record of 16-9, a 1.98 GAA and a .940 save %. 4 of Thomas's 16 wins were shutouts. Tim Thomas set the record for most saves in a single Post Season with 798, and the most saves in a Stanley Cup series with 238. He becomes the 17th goalie all time to win the Conn Smythe trophy. He is the oldest player to ever win the award at 37 years, 62 days old, and becomes only the 2nd American-born player to EVER win the trophy, the first being Brian Leetch with the 1994 New York Rangers.
Now for some final thoughts and numbers on the 2011 Stanley Cup Playoffs and finals. First here are the final stats for the top skaters and goalies in this years playoffs. Here are the final stats for the skaters in the playoffs: David Krejci lead all players in playoff scoring with 12 goals 11 assists for 24 points. He is followed by Henrik Sedin of the Vancouver Canucks 3 goals and 19 assists for 22 points. Tim Thomas lead all playoff goalies with th numbers listed above.
What surprised me the most about not only Game Seven but most of the finals as a whole was the Vancouver Canucks as a team. The showed life in the first two games then went AWOL in Games 3 & 4. Game 5 they showed flashes, but Games 6 & 7 there was nothing. Roberto Luongo to his credit did what he could, but the Sedin Twins were nowhere to be found in the finals at all. The first two games the Canucks looked in control of the series, but in my opinion things changed completely in Game Three when Arron Rome threw that big check on Nathan Horton, knocking Horton out for the rest of the finals. After that point Boston really seemed to turn it on, with the exception of Game Five. Vancouver seemed to have lost its heart and its desire to win after Game 3 and Boston really found theirs. Vancouver basically no-showed the rest of the finals after Game Three. It really was a poor showing by the Canucks towards the end of the series.
Now that we have that small rant about the Canucks pathetic play out of the way, I will say this much this has been without a doubt the most entertaining playoffs in a good long time. In total through all four rounds there were 22 games that had to be decided in Overtime. Of the four rounds the Bruins played three of which had to go Seven games all of which were won by Boston, an NHL First. Between the 2000 Cup Finals and right now, of the 11 cup finals that have been played 6 of them have required all seven games to crown a champion. The 6 finals are: 2001 Colorado over New Jersey, 2003 New Jersey over Anaheim, 2004 Tampa Bay over Calgary, 2006 Carolina over Edmonton, 2009 Pittsburgh over Detroit, and 2011 Boston over Vancouver. Hockey fans have been spoiled over the past two months with the level of play in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and it really was incredible hockey to watch.
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