Potatoe1 wrote:Blob Mckenzie wrote:Kind of odd that we as Canuck fans all wrapped up in our own myopic world rarely if ever mention why the Bruins won the cup. It's always a littany of reasons why Vancouver lost the finals, as opposed to giving the other team any credit for winning.
The Bruins won because they played a great defensive game. They got stellar goaltending- Tim Thomas was a fucking brick wall. They imposed thier physical will on the Canucks regardless of whether the officiating was sketchy or not ,and it definitely was BTW. A big part of Boston's game is toughness and physical play and that is part of the reason they won. Not to mention Zdeno Chara turning into a bigger faster Larry Robinson and giving one of the most dominant performances on the back end I have ever seen.
I'm not sure anyone would disagree, they are a very good team.
That said the Canucks are not going to beat the Bruins by being more like the Bruins. They are going to beat the Bruins with better puck movement, higher skill, better special teams, and goaltending that is at least somewhat comparable.
Our ability to do the things that makes "us" a very good team was significantly impaired by the injury situation and the massive gap in goaltending.
Injuires were an issue, as was travel. The travel stuff is rarely mentioned.
Vancouver traveled over 51,000 miles during the regular season (3rd most in the league), while Boston traveled 35,000 miles (21st in the league).
Then Vancouver was jetting to Chicago (1770 miles), Nashville (2030 miles) and San Jose (824 miles), for a total distance of over 4600 miles. Meanwhile Boston was going to to Montreal (250 miles), Philladelphia (270 miles) and Tampa (1180 miles) for 1700 total miles. So, before these 2 team met, one had travelled almost 3 times as during the playoffs, while the other never left their time zone.
Call it an excuse all you want. The science is there that this put one team at a disadvantage.