Not to mention the non stop hitting the Bruins did. I think it scared the Canucks from really digging in the corners for the puck. You could see how tentative/reluctant they were to do so.
Also, where were the Sedin sisters in this series?
Nobody likes crow. But sometimes, the other team wins, and just sometimes, the other team is the better team.
I learned that when my Patriots lost to the NY Giants back in 2008. As tough as that was, I eventually had to acknowledge that the Giants just wanted it more and played harder to get it.
That made the Giants a better team on that day. This was a seven game series, so there is even less wiggle room.
I believe I saw the Sedins this morning...on the side of a milk carton.
To be honest, I thought the Bruins were a flawed team in some respects, especially getting the puck out of their own zone. As a Boston fan, I admit I came down on Chara many times, because as a heralded defenseman, I thought he gave up the puck in his own end too often with bad passes, and the team as a whole seemed to have one move deep in their own zone: bank it behind the net, no matter who was on the other side.
But as someone who played goal for fifteen years, I could see the strength in Thomas’s play. Even if he is unorthodox in some respects, he had superlative balance, always seemed to stay right over his skates, had good anticipation, and was aggressive, aggressive, aggressive.
For me, it was the play a few games back where a Vancouver player was standing right in front of him and knocked an incoming puck out of the air with his hand. The puck dropped right as his feet...before he could whack it in, Thomas decked him.
As a goalie, I have had that happen more times than I can count, and it is a move that always made me feel completely helpless. The player often knows right where the puck will fall, and it is a bang-bang play...that was emblematic to me that he did exactly the right thing at the right time there.