Bruins capture Stanley Cup

The Boston Bruins went into Vancouver and skated all over the Canucks on their way to a 4-0 victory in game seven of the Stanley Cup Final.

After three dominating performances in Boston, the Bruins found a way to bottle their home game and bring it west. Aside from a few players, the Canucks came out flat and got average goaltending, yet again. The Bruins were good from top to bottom and received great goaltending from the slam-dunk Conn Smythe winner.

A lot of credit needs to be given to the Bruins for not only finding a way to steal a win on the road but roll up two stellar games in a row to flip the series in their favor. After Vancouver’s 1-0 win in game five the Canucks had all of the momentum. Unfortunately Roberto Luongo was bad in game six and bad again in game seven. The Bruins first goal was rather fluky but goals two and three needed to be saved. In fact, it looked to me like he gave up on Patrice Bergeron’s shorthanded goal.

What really perplexed me about his performance was the Bruins’ second goal. Because if I remember correctly, that is an easy save for him to make.

I would like to know if Mike Schopp is still 100% sold on the fact that Roberto Luongo is a better goaltender than Ryan Miller. Funny, that he would make such a claim (like faceoffs are meaningless) and then have such stunning evidence to the contrary of his argument.

This isn’t a Roberto Luongo argument though. This is about the Bruins, a team that systematically whooped on the Canucks throughout the series and shut down their scoring lines for seven-straight games. Between Claude Julien’s line matching and Zdeno Chara and Dennis Siedenberg’s ability to shut down the Sedin’s, the Bruins negated the Canucks’ depth advantage. Not to mention, Tim Thomas was fantastic. All credit where it is due to the Bruins for finding a way to win this series. They dropped two games early and turned the tide on the President’s Trophy winners.

As much as the Canucks struggled, the Bruins succeeded. In fact, even their stagnant power play was strong in this series.

I will say the Sedin’s were a massive disappointing in this series. Between the dives and perimeter play, the Wonder Twins were anything but. They were actually difficult to watch, it seemed as if they had no interest in playing the games at all. It was pretty typical, if you ask me (or Mike MIlbury), of a European player to be such a massive no-show. Had those two provided any sort of offensive contribution this would have been a different series. Not once did the Canucks appear to have control, meanwhile the Bruins were heads and shoulders better four of the seven games – maybe even five of the games.

What is going to be interesting is how the Canucks will handle this loss. Well, we know how the fans handled it. But the team was built for this run. They spent over $4 million on, healthy scratch, Keith Ballard plus Kevin Bieksa and Dan Hamhuis’ salary. They need to resign Bieksa, Christian Erhoff and Sami Salo for next season, plus whoever they pay on the front end. The Canucks could be in a tough spot for success next season, while it seems as if the Bruins are built for at least four more years of success.