7th Heaven! Lose-ongo!! No Doubting Thomas!!!!!!! STANLEY CUP PUNS!!!!!!!!!!
16 Jun
I’m not a huge fan of hockey cliche’s but, in the end, the Boston Bruins just wanted it more. From rookie Brad Marchand (2 goals, 1 assist in game 7) to 43 year old walking museum exhibit, Mark Recchi (7 points in the finals, +3 in game 7) to the oldest player to ever win the Conn Smythe, Tim Thomas, the Boston Bruins outhustled, outprepared, outworked and generally outplayed the Vancouver Canucks in game 7, which is a shame, because whether your a Boston or Vancouver fan, I think you wanted to see a tighter game than 4 – 0.
Luongo v. Thomas
If this was indeed the game and series that will define Roberto Luongo’s career, it’s going to be a long summer. Not only was he beaten for three while watching his counterpart put up a shutout, he let in a goal mimicking the type of goal he famously claimed would be “an easy save for me” for the second goal of the game, and then showed a complete lack of determination on a Patrice Bergeron semi-breakaway for the back-breaking third goal of the game.
Throwing Vancouver’s performance into sharp contrast was an incredibly focused and determined Boston Bruins defence anchored by a very confident Tim Thomas. Thomas ended his Conn Smythe award winning payoffs with a shutout on the road against the highest scoring team in the league, hard to beat that.
Disappearing Act?
Daniel Sedin, Henrik Sedin and Ryan Kesler combined to be a -10 tonight. Kesler didn’t have a point in the series. I’m sure we’ll find out about some injuries in the next couple of days, but it’s hard to win with those numbers.
The Horton Effect – Also known as the opposite of the Krejci effect.
When you have deep, balanced scoring like the Bruins, you can take what should be a devastating blow, like the hit to Nathan Horton, turn it into a motivator and continue to be successful. The Bruins staff obviously did a great job of that.
I’ll have more of my trademark bullet point analysis tomorrow. For now, I have to prepare for the long dark of the off-season.