Oh, the Bruins have shattered the Canucks' confidence. Luongo is on a cold streak, and may not wake up until next season. The Canucks' "D" is too worn out and downtrodden to fend off the balanced attack of physical Boston forwards. Vancouver just doesn't have any gas left in the tank. Right? Well, maybe, maybe not. As Eric Duhatschek notes, the Roberto Luongo bandwagon has filled up again.
But by game’s end, after the Canucks gutted out a 1-0 victory to take a 3-2 series lead in the Stanley Cup final, there were another 18,000 or so true believers who’d rejoined the Roberto Luongo fan club - and probably lots more on the streets of Vancouver, which turned into one big giant block party for last night’s riveting contest.
It may well be true that they were deflated after two consecutive losses in Boston, and that their defense corps was hurting, or even that injuries to stars like Ryan Kesler were slowing them down. The truth of the matter is, these narratives aren't dictating the course of the whole series.
So far, home ice advantage appears to be the real difference, but even then, who's to say that this is the case for this series? Certainly, teams with the home ice advantage have won more often historically - but isn't it more likely that the root cause of their success is the fact they these teams have been more successful over the course regular season, and not just in a seven-game series? Certainly, if you want to evaluate teams, you'd opt for the larger sample size of eighty-two games, rather than seven.
The Canucks have always been the odds-on favorite to win the Cup in this series, and those tough losses in Beantown didn't actually change that. Here's hoping that the B's can pull it off, but I have a hunch that the Canucks are going to win their first Cup in franchise history in Game 7 at home.
Links after the jump.
Canucks a win away from clinching the Cup
Recap from Matthew Sekeres at the Globe and Mail
The essential Max Lapierre performance
Do you need another reason to despise this Canuck team? I didn't think so, but you've got one anyway.
Winnipeg's arena meets most NHL standards as is
Of course, a few extra thousand seats wouldn't hurt the pockets of the owners
Habs re-sign Mathieu Darche
Headline says it all
New Down Goes Brown
Why you can stop hating the Bruins and Canucks
Tweetin' Prospects
Jon S, over at Puckin' Eh, has a few thoughts on potential draft choices for the Leafs
Back in '62
Michael Langlois remembers a Leafs-related momentum shift
