Running Stanley Cup Playoff Thread

MacGregor's take on Roberto

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/three-goals-nine-minutes-countless-questions-for-luongo/article2059622/

It is an incremental collapse. The goaltender falters. The defencemen, who are tasked with keeping attackers at bay, lose faith and stay further back in order to defend. The forwards begin worrying more about their own end than the opposition end. The attack fizzles; the mistakes compound; the game is lost. That is how important the goaltender is.

He's absolutely right. Once your goalie starts crapping out, everything breaks down. It's a weird kind of psychological meltdown by the entire team. It's a phenom you see from teams starting in Peewee.

 

That makes a lot of sense. One of the NBC guys said it looked like the Bruins had the puck on a string in the first period because they were doing whatever they wanted after the first goal.

It's also why a goalie change seems to settle a team down more than a little bit in a lot of cases. It's a new start, they can relax and play.

Luongo has one real notable blind spot -- high glove. In their wins, the B's have scored several key goals high glove -- including the first goal tonight, and as noted, when Kelly hit the bar in Game 5, it was high glove. If they can bury one of those early on him again, then suddenly the crowd turns, the Canucks start squeezing their sticks, and Boston can start flying.

Last change will be key, too. Matchups have meant everything in this series because they're so closely matched and both teams are so deep.

 

The plain and simple truth is once again Luongo shit the bed and Thomas was great. I honestly didn't think the Canucks were that bad, their goalie let them down while Bostons, once again, allows his team a chance to win. I'd be interested to see what the actual chances in this game were.

 

I think they were chanting "flopper." It was obvious pretty quickly he was pretty seriously hurt, and while Vancouver has been notorious this entire playoffs for its embellishment of practically everything (one of the Sedins went flying in Game 5 after bumping into a teammate), he wasn't flopping or embellishing. Raymond is pretty respected by a lot of the Boston fans.

 

Canucks have earned their rep. I'm not going to give The Bruins fans shit for this. Fans are irrational, especially if you are in the building.

 

Someone I saw was speculating back injury for Raymond, but you have to think if it was that they wouldn't have let him get off the ice by himself (even if he was kind of dragged by two teammates).

ETA: Now I'm seeing rumors that say ruptured testicle. I'm not even a guy, but ow....

 

Regrettable, though given the Canucks' long-term tendencies, they don't deserve to be given an inch of wiggle room about anything. I'm no Bruins fan, but they're oh, so easy to root for in this spot.

 

You'd be surprised at the number of Canadians who are cheering for the Bruins. And more and more as the series goes on. They're a hard team to like although I'm figuring at least they've helped produced one of the strangest Final that I can ever remember.

 

Sportsnet is saying a fractured vertebrae now.

 

Burke was wrong, apparently Sedin in English does mean "punch me in the face".

 

Given two opportunities to take complete control of the series and one to win it outright, the Canucks not only failed to win any of the three games, they failed to even compete.
That is not the sort of performance that earns the admiration of neutral observers.

 

They've been outscored, what, 19-7 through six games?

I had no doubt who the better team was going into the series, and now I have no doubt I was wrong.