Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Bruins rout Canucks, 8-1

Boston exploded for four goals each in the second and third periods to rout Vancouver, 8-1, Monday night in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals at TD Garden in Boston.
The Bruins trail the Canucks, 2-1, in the best-of-seven series with Game 4 scheduled for Wednesday night in Boston.
Tim Thomas stopped 40 shots, but was a bit overshadowed by the scraps and goals.
Following Aaron Rome's devastating hit on Nathan Horton, I will delve into that situation in another post, the Bruins took over with four goals in the second.
Boston's Andrew Ference opened the scoring 11 seconds into the second. Mark Recchi followed that up with a power-play goal at 4:22.
With Vancouver on a power play and a chance to get back in the game, Brad Marchand scored a short-handed goal to give Bruins a 3-0 lead at 11:30 of the second.
David Krejci capped of the second with a goal at 15:47 and Boston held a 4-0 lead at going into the third.
The third saw the Bruins add another short-handed goal before the Canucks' Jannik Hansen beat Thomas at 13:53 of the third and a 5-1 Boston lead.
The Bruins scored three more goals, however, and the game turned into a bar-room brawl on ice. Punches were thrown, Alex Burrows was taunted by Milan Lucic to take a bite out of him and scoring champ Daniel Sedin was sent to the showers early with a game misconduct. Ryan Kesler also had an early shower.
I'm sure I'm missing somebody, but there were about seven players left on the bench at game's end.
After playing stellar in the first two games, Vancouver looked vunerable. They committed stupid penalties, got beat to loose pucks and didn't show the determination it takes to win a Stanley Cup. I'm still going with the Canucks to win Games 4 and 5, but it won't be easy. Roberto Luongo was sub-par at best. He gave up some easy goals.
If Boston wins Game 4, who knows, but they were definitely the better team in Game 3. For what it's worth, the Bruins hold a 10-5 lead in aggregate scoring.
Vancouver and Luongo come back strong with a 2-1 victory in Game 4.

No comments:

Post a Comment