Colour me confused.
The Vancouver Canucks entered the TD Banknorth Gardens in Boston last night on a roll. They had won the first two games of the Stanley Cup Final in dramatic fashion, between Raffi Torres' 1-0 goal with 14 seconds remaining in Game 1 and Alex Burrows' 3-2 winning goal just 11 seconds into overtime in Game 2, the Canucks had certainly had a flair for the dramatic. Conversely, the Bruins had looked slow and tired.
But early in Game 3, an incident occurred which simultaneously invigorated the Bruins while deflating the soaring Canucks. A role player for the Canucks stepped up and threw a devestating hit on a star player for the Boston Bruins, a hit which saw the Bruins player leave the game with a concussion.
Stop me when this starts sounding familiar. It was only a short month ago that Raffi Torres, in his first game of the playoffs, caught Chicago defensemen Brent Seabrook with his head down and exploded into him. A slightly different circumstance, as the league ruled it a clean hit and Seabrook remained in the game temporarily before missing the next two with a concussion.
When Aaron Rome stepped into Nathan Horton with an admittedly late and blindside hit, it had the Bruins seeing red. The Bruins attacked the Canucks; they outskated them to every puck, they won every battle along the boards, they rendered the Canucks' power play impotent, and their own power play which had that very same label before this series came to life. They scored goals at even strength, while shorthanded and with the man advantage.
Horton is lost for the playoffs with a severe concussion. My guess is that Aaron Rome will also be "lost" due to a severe suspension forthcoming from the league today. It is my opinion that the league suspends players based on the results of a hit rather than the action itself. Rome's action warrants 1 or 2 games; but given the fact that we have a no-name player knocking a star out of the Stanley Cup Final, it would not surprise me in the least to see Rome have the proverbial book thrown at him.
But all of this is a side story. The real story last night was how the Bruins surged to life while the Canucks wilted. It's not a new story to us; the Canucks were outscored 12-2 in Games 4 and 5 of their first round series against Chicago before rebounding to take the series in seven games. Last night struck a similar chord for me, in that the game wasn't so much won by the Bruins as it was lost by the Canucks. I made mention of the fact that the Bruins were winning all the battles, but it wasn't as if the Canucks were charging in with their A-Game.
There were plenty of sideshow antics on display. Tim Thomas speared Ryan Kesler in the groin and also cross checked Henrik Sedin; both Mark Recchi and Milan Lucic shoved their hands in the faces of both Maxim Lapierre and Alex Burrows in an attempt to get the latter players to "take a bite", something Boston coach Claude Julien had been critical of the Canucks for in advance of the game. To his credit, he also criticised his own team for doing it after their 8-1 Game 3 victory. But that doesn't change that last night was a complete circus on the ice.
The Canucks reached their boiling point too. Once the Bruins were up by a score of 4-0, they started doing everything they could to cheapshot the Canucks. Late hits, slashes to the ankles and backs of the leagues, facewashes, punches to the face, the aforementioned spears to groins, the whole 9 yards. Daniel Sedin took an elbow to the face from Andrew Ference and nearly dropped the gloves with him for the first time in his career. Alex Burrows took a whack at Tim Thomas and then took punches to the midsection, face and back of the head from Milan Lucic. Ryan Kesler finally had enough and tackled Dennis Seidenberg to the ice, clobbering him in the head with as many punches as he could muster before the linesman intervened.
It was a circus. The officials lost control of the game and the coaches lost control of their respective teams.
Speaking of coaches, Alain Vigneault lost the game of adjustments. He asked Roberto Luongo if he wanted to be pulled when the score was 5-0, to which Luongo declined. Bull. Vigneault shouldn't be asking, he should be telling. With the score completely out of reach and the antics on the ice approaching a parody of Paul Newman's "Slap Shot", Luongo should have been pulled and allowed to rest with a focus on Game 4.
Some have also been extremely critical of Vigneault and the coaching staff's insistance on playing Aaron Rome over the consensus superior player in mobile Keith Ballard. Admittedly, when Rome plays within his limits he is a very effective player. Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final was the best game of his career. But he was forced into a bigger role due to the injury of Dan Hamhuis, and he struggled mightily in Game 2. In Game 3, he only needed 1:29 of ice time to sink the Canucks' hopes.
Vigneault had stated he wanted to employ his quickest lineup to expose the Bruins' lack of foot speed. By choosing to play both Aaron Rome and Andrew Alberts over the much more fleet-of-foot pair of Keith Ballard and Chris Tanev, he did the opposite of that. Look for that change to take effect for Game 4.
But back to my typical "glass half full" self--the Canucks lost this game. The Bruins didn't win it. You will see a much tighter, closer Game 4 in my opinion. The Canucks usually rebound from a blowout loss with a stingy defensive game, and I expect Game 4 to be no different.
For the Chicken Littles out there, look at it this way--the Canucks are up 2-1 and if they are victorious in Game 4, they will have a chance for the first time in franchise history to win a Stanley Cup. And on home ice in Game 5 to boot.
So picture that, and picture the Canucks team that has gotten this far and take a deep breath.
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