Canucks have big fight on their hands in B’s
ABOSTON
s this is a great and historic harbour town, it’s possible the Boston Bruins could arrive for games by ship.
If they did, the Jolly Roger would be flapping in the breeze, the hold will be filled with treasure plundered from around the National Hockey League and the Bruins would refer to each other not as teammates, but as “argh matey.” And nobody would tease them about their peg legs or those stupid parrots on their shoulders for fear of joining the poor sucker — most recently in a Calgary Flames’ jersey — hanging from the yardarm.
The Boston Bruins are not to be messed with. But the Vancouver Canucks will try this afternoon.
“The team really resonates with the city,” Bostonian Cory Schneider said before he was named the Canucks’ starting goalie after Friday’s practice. “This is really a blue-collar, middle-class town and people identify with players like that. It was always the big, bad Bruins with guys like Terry O’reilly and Cam Neely. There was a gap there for awhile, but now Boston’s got that kind of team back.
“Boston has great people, really good people. But if you go into a bar and look at someone the wrong way, he’s going to want to fight you.”
So maybe it’s best if the Canucks avoid eye contact because the Bruins love to fight, which the Canucks discovered in June when they were bullied in the Stanley Cup final.
Few teams in the past 20 years have combined Boston’s formidable skill with its eagerness and ability to physically pummel and intimidate opponents. The Bruins’ 9-0 win Thursday against the Flames gave Boston a 23-3-1 record since October. Eleven times in 37 games, the Bruins have pumped in at least six goals, and Boston has won nine of its past 10 while outscoring opponents 49-13.
But two snapshots this season that best capture the Bruins’ identity didn’t make the scoring summary. On Nov. 12, Boston winger Milan Lucic ran over Buffalo goalie Ryan Miller, then stood back with a so-what’s-anyone-going-to-do-about-it belligerence. On Dec. 28, after Phoenix’s Raffi Torres shouldered Bruins defenceman Andrew Ference in the head, Boston defenceman Adam Mcquaid grabbed the not-so-wily Coyote and beat him into the ice, delivering the final uppercut as Torres was on his knees bleeding.
These incidents have nothing to do with scoring, but a lot to do with winning. The Bruins took both games.
“The way we’re built, we really don’t worry about it too much,” Boston heavyweight Shawn Thornton said of being challenged physically. “We’re very capable of taking care of business if it needs to be taken care of. The wingers on our top line (Lucic and Nathan Horton) are probably two of the toughest guys in the league and they get 20, 30 goals each. Our captain (Zdeno Chara) is six-foot-nine and arguably the toughest guy in the league. I’m probably third or fourth in line and it’s my job. So we never really put too much thought into it.”
The Canucks haven’t a hope of beating the Bruins in a brawl. But Vancouver, 16-4-2 since Nov. 16 and coming off a 3-0 win Wednesday against the Minnesota Wild, is an excellent team that can beat Boston on the ice. Their failure to do so in the final was due to a goaltending mismatch won by Tim Thomas over Roberto Luongo in the games in Boston, the Canucks’ inability to score on the power play and the Bruins drawing their opponents into swarming confrontations after the whistle. No team feeds on that more than the Bruins, and no fans feed on it more than Boston’s.
The final five games of the Stanley Cup were played on the Bruins’ terms. The Canucks want to play today’s game on their terms, even as they expect the Bruins to try running them out of the building.
“For sure,” Canucks captain Henrik Sedin said this week. “But that can be fun, too, when you’re ready for it.”
On Friday, after the team practised at Harvard, Sedin explained: “If you’re on your game and feeling good, that’s when you like the other team to come at you. For us, it’s going to be fun coming in tomorrow. A lot of teams are built that way (like the Bruins). The special thing with Boston is they’re a good team as well.”
Players from both teams told reporters too much is being made of the game. Canucks head coach Alain Vigneault wryly argued it can’t be a big game because no national network chose to televise it.