rusty staub wrote:
Your son could learn a valuable lesson from his hero; don't shoot your mouth off. Even if you give him the benefit of the doubt on his post Game-5 comments on Thomas, he ate his words getting burned "out of the paint" ... also he has a track record of blaming his teammates for losses, not sure if he's done that this year but he did last year and the year before. Between this and the NBA finals, it's been a spring of come-uppance for some athletes..

The Bruins outscored the Canucks 23-8. What a pummelling if you think about it .. I'm Canadian, but i have a hard time rooting for Canadian hockey teams. There's just a sense of entitlement to the Cup up here, and when I see the inevitable riot unfold as it did in Vancouver, I feel less guilty for rooting American when it comes to hockey.

How about that Brad Marchand? ... and Patrice Bergeron, he was thought to be done with concussions. The Bruins came back from 2-0 down in two different series. Pretty incredible playoff.

Luongo was asked after game five if he would have stopped the only goal in that game.  He said he would have because he doesn't play the angles the way Thomas does.  He also said Thomas makes saves that he probably wouldn't.  He was specifically asked about the other goalie and gave an honest answer.  The Boston media chose to only run the part of the quote making it sound like he was insulting Thomas.  That's not giving him the benefit of the doubt, that's the just the facts of what happened.

As for Marchand, sure, great playoff, great puck pursuit, lots of goals; but the guy is an immature clown.  Dusting his hands late in game four.  Pointing into the crowd at Canucks' fans after scoring into the empty net in game seven.  The guy is cheap and I hope he grows up. 

While the series was entertaining, it was also a despicable display of cheap shots, whining, and diving, by both teams.  The league is to blame as well.  Chara broke a guy's neck in the regular season and Boychuk broke a guy's back in the final and neither was suspended.  I don't have a problem with the Bruins playing on the edge, but when they went over the line they weren't consistently and reasonably punished. 

The Canucks chose to counter the Bruins' aggression with half-baked retaliation and foolish theatrics.  They fell right into Boston's trap.  The Habs are markedly inferior to Boston yet came as close to beating them as anyone.  How?  They turned the other cheek, played smart, and had good special teams.  If the Canucks had just skated away from the crap, Boston could not have seized control of the tempo of the game and the refs would have had to call more of the garbage because only one team would have been doing it.  Instead, they tried to call only the worst of it.