Bruins Win The Stanley Cup!
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Loud Mouth Luongo may have an Olympic gold medal, but Tim Thomas has the Stanley Cup!
Patrice Bergeron put the Bruins on the board first with his first goal of the Stanley Cup Finals 14:37 into the first period. After that, Tim Thomas did the rest!
Thomas, who was sensational for the first 6 games of the Finals, was outstanding again last night. The Bruins’ net minder stopped all 37 shots he faced from Vancouver helping the Bruins to a 4-0 victory in the seventh and deciding game of the Stanley Cup Finals.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTAnd the Cup is not all that Thomas has for hardware. The Bruins goaltender, who carried Boston to its first Stanley Cup in 39 years, also has the Conn Smythe Trophy given to the league’s most outstanding player of the postseason. And next Wednesday night, he will most likely add a second Vezina Trophy to his mantle as the league’s best goaltender this season.
Yes, this was a terrific team effort by these Boston Bruins to take the Cup. But make no mistake about it, nobody played a bigger role in bringing it back to Boston more than the B’s 37-year old goaltender.
For the series, Thomas gave up 8 goals in 7 games (1.14 goals against average). 3 of those 8 goals were in garbage time. Thomas was Dominik Hasek or Patrick Roy. Going back a bit farther, Thomas was Ken Dryden.
They say that a great goaltender can take you a long way. That is exactly what Tim Thomas did for the Boston Bruins this year.
But Thomas was also the beneficiary of being part of a great team. Were the Boston Bruins the most skilled team in the NHL this season? Hardly. But played like a true team getting contributions from all parts of the line-up. And they were a very resilient bunch seemingly always able to bounce back from a tough loss.
While Thomas deservingly receives most of the accolades, his teammate Brad Marchand could very well have been the Conn Smythe Trophy recipient as well.
The Bruins rookie scored a franchise rookie-record 11 goals this postseason and came up huge in game 7 last night as he has all series.
On Boston’s first goal, Marchand flat out outhustled Vancouver skaters to the puck in their own zone after the Canucks had won the faceoff. Marchand appeared to be passing it to Mark Recchi but it made it all the way through to Patrice Bergeron who poked it past Luongo.
At 12:13 of the second period, Marchand grabbed a rebound of a Dennis Seidenberg shot and skated behind the net scoring on the wrap-around giving Boston a 2-0 lead while silencing the Rogers Arena crowd.
It got even quieter about 5 minutes later when Bergeron scored a shorthanded goal to put Boston in control 3-0.
That would be the score after two making period #3 seem like the longest 20 minutes of hockey for the soon-to-be celebrating B’s.
Boston would add a fourth goal in the 3rd on Marchand's second of the game versus an empty Vancouver net with 2:44 to play and the celebration was on!
The Stanley Cup is Boston’s 6th overall in franchise history and their first since the Big Bad Bruins of 1972. It also is the city of Boston’s 7th championship since 2001 with the Patriots winning 3 times, the Red Sox twice and the Celtics and Bruins each winning one.
A parade for the Bruins will take place on Saturday at 11am in the City of Champions.
NOTES:
-Injured Bruins forward Nathan Horton made the trip to Vancouver and may have been instrumental in his team’s game 7 win. Having gone 3-0 in Boston and 0-3 in Vancouver heading into the game, Horton decided to bring a little of Boston to Vancouver with him. Before the game, Horton poured Boston water on the ice surface of the Rogers Arena. It certainly worked.
-Wednesday night the Sedin’s were less than “zero’s.” Henrik and Daniel were each -4 in game 7 meaning they were on the ice for all 4 of Boston’s goals. For all of their talent and skill, the Sedin twins were shut down by Boston for the entire series.
-It’s amazing to think of where the Bruins came from to win the Stanley Cup this postseason. Boston started the playoffs losing the first two games of their Eastern Conference Quarterfinal series against arch rival Montreal at the TD Garden! Most had written the team off following those two losses and had Claude Julien on the unemployment line. Since those two losses, the B’s went 16-7 winning all four series. In three of the four they won a game 7.
-As tradition has it, each member of a Stanley Cup championship team gets to spend 1 full day with the Cup. Many players elect to take the Cup back to their home towns. Do you think it would be a wise idea for Boston’s Milan Lucic to take the Cup back to his native Vancouver? Just asking.
-Lucic did get a nice ovation from the Canucks fans when it was his turn to hoist the cup.
-43-year old Mark Recchi said midway through the season that if Boston won the Stanley Cup this year that he would probably retire. Nobody took his talk of winning the Cup that seriously then. They do now! What a way for the great 3-time champion to go out - on top! Recchi confirmed after it was over, "this is it for me."
-Vancouver fans booed NHL commissioner Gary Bettman quite loudly every time he took to the mike.
-Rookie Brad Marchand also heard the boos when it was his turn to touch the Cup. He became public enemy #1 of Canucks fans this series.
-The Bruins became the and the first-ever road team to win a game 7 by shutout and the first-ever road team to win game 7 by shutout.
-Boston also became the 5th team ever to come back from a 2-0 deficit in the Finals to win the Cup.
-While Boston fans celebrated late into the night in a somewhat orderly manner, there were reports of rioting in Vancouver.
