Anyone paying any attention to the hockey battle that is starting to take place as of Monday night (and by the sound of it there aren't that many of us), the 2011 Stanley Cup championship is kind of starting to take some shape.
If you are a Bruins fan, it made Mondays a little more bearable even if it took place long after work hours ended but the Black and Gold definitely made it a good one for the Boston following.
After Vancouver won both of the first two games of the best-of-seven championship final, albeit both games could easily have gone either way, everyone who thinks they know, seem to think that Vancouver has more and will win the Cup.
Monday night however was exactly what Boston's following wanted to see, scoring 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 goals on Vancouver netminder Roberto Luongo.
I think Don Cherry is onto something when he says on national TV that once the fourth goal goes in it is time for a goaltender change. Boston beat up Vancouver in every aspect of the game but there was pretty good reason to worry if you support the Americans in this year's final.
Bruin forward Milan Lucic, among the Bruin players not known much for showing a sense of humour told a reporter following Saturday's Vancouver OT victory 'we've played 102 games so far this season, we aren't going to give up now'. That game put Boston down 2-0.
On Monday night, Boston did not give up, they put it to Vancouver so bad that now Vancouver needs a little gut check.
If there was ever a doubt in Boston's ability to score goals in bunches, as of Monday night they are all gone now. Possibly for the first time this 2011 hockey playoff, the Broad Street Bullies decimated the opponents' defence. In the third period with the score at 5-1, Beantown attackers put together three more goals in 1:50. Brad Marchand and Daniel Paille made the Canucks look even worse; both tallied shorthanded in the last two periods. When a team scores, and they have fewer guys on the ice then the other guys do, it is time to go to plan 'B', if there is a plan 'B'. All of this offensive output was almost insane considering that in their last 10 periods of hockey Boston had only three goals altogether.
A devastating body check to Bruin Nathan Horton at the Vancouver blueline by Canuck Aaron Rome left Horton to be carried off the ice in a stretcher, looking unconscious, after landing on the ice flat on his back. Reporters on the scene described it as "spooky". Medical personnel attended to Horton and spent a good several minutes with him before transporting him to hospital. Rome for his part, was slapped with a five-minute major and a game misconduct. Once Horton got to hospital, it was announced at TD Garden that he had the vital signs and could move his arms and legs. The hit added to the bad blood between the two clubs from two bad-tempered hits in Vancouver. As for the goals, they couldn't have been prettier if you are a Bruin supporter.
Brad Marchand scored a short-handed beauty on a great individual effort at 11:30 and then, after a physical shift by Thornton and the fourth line -- Thornton had a one-man cycle going and then hammered Vancouver's Mason Raymond to the ice in front of the net -- David Krejci scored on a rebound to make it 4-0.
The third period was even better for the home side and got worse for the visitors. Anyone witnessing games 1-2 probably caught on that the boys in black were way too easy on the Canucks' top guns, the Sedin twins. It was interesting to see Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas deck Henrik Sedin in front of the net. Seconds later, Andrew Ference gave Daniel Sedin a shot after an icing call and Daniel went down like a bowl of hot chowder on a winter's day, clutching his face. As if the TD Garden crowd needed another reason to make some noise but they got one anyway. Daniel then jumped up and grabbed Ference by the face.
At the end of the game, Ryan Kesler and Bruins defenceman Dennis Seidenberg squared off for a short scrap in what was actually more funny then a fight should be. It is why journalists label these stupid things 'dances'. They hugged for a few seconds then they fell down.
The feeling of this game, compared to the first two in Vancouver, was as different as the two cities themselves.
If there's anything you'd like to see covered by Game 7, please forward your suggestions to the Yorkton This Week sportsdesk by phone (306) 782-2465, or email jeff@yorkton this week.com
