The Glade 4.0

Vancouver Canucks hosting the Boston Bruins for Game 1.

My analysis: Boston has their work cut out for them here. At even strength, 5-on-5, Boston has a slight advantage over Vancouver. Their physical play and dominant defense may even be able to shut-down Vancouver's incredible offense. While Boston will have a hard time getting their anemic offense to score on Roberto Luongo, if they could play the entire series 5-on-5, they will win. The problem is, the series will not be entirely 5-on-5.

Boston relies heavily on physical play. While this isn't a bad thing, per se, it usually causes a fair number of penalty calls against you. Vancouver's power-play has been brilliant, and Boston's penalty kill has been less than stellar. If Boston takes penalties, they will get scored on. If they play a physical game, they will take penalties. They need to play a physical game to dominate 5-on-5. This puts them in a bit of a catch-22.

The opposite is not true for the Canucks. Vancouver can take all the penalties they want to prevent Boston from getting at their net, because Boston has not demonstrated any ability to score on the powerplay these playoffs. With the man-advantage, they look like fish out of water, completely disorganized.

So, let's say Boston dials back the physical play, and attempts a more "run and gun" type of game. What happens then? So far, every time Boston has tried to open up the ice and play a more end-to-end game, their system falls apart and the opposition ends up scoring 6+ goals on them. They cannot afford to do this against the offensive powerhouse that is the Vancouver Canucks.

If the Bruins hope to win this series, they're going to have to hope the referees put away their whistles and let this series play out, ignoring all but the most egregious of on-ice offenses. If the refs call everything they see, I don't see Boston even making it to 6 games.

My prediction (which is worth less than the paper this post is printed on): Vancouver in 6.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I think that's probably a fair assessment.

Tim Thomas will have to steal atleast 2 games fir this series to be competitive.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Talya, I have to ask you, as a Canadian - are you rooting for the Canucks? Reason I ask is that today's LA Times had a column about how, even though a Canadian team hasn't won a title since 1994, the Canucks aren't particularly well liked. Just curious.

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This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

Yes, I am. I think it would just be a nice cap on having had the winter olympics there a couple years ago. I also really like the players Vancouver has. (The Sedin twins are fun to watch.)

The Maple Leafs fans around here tend to dislike Vancouver, and I cannot figure out why. Except that they're not the Leafs. /shrug


That said, Boston has more Canadian players on its roster than Vancouver does.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Do they? The column suggested they both have 17.

Not disliking the Canucks must be because you're a cosmopolitan, liberal, Canadian, unlike those redneck Leafs fans! I dunno, something about how cool of a place Vancouver is, I dunno. Thanks for answering.

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This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

Cosmopolitan? I'm not entirely sure Vancouver qualifies as more "Cosmopolitan" than Toronto. They both seem like Apple-computer using, starbucks-drinking bohemian snobs to me.

Then again, i've spent all of one hour in Vancouver (and that was on an airport stopover.)

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I no can has website to watch the game. Much sadness was had by me.

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

It's on NBC, dude.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Well, Vancouver took game 1. Great game...but strangely, the only goal was scored by Vancouver, at even strength. All those powerplays, and not a goal. I need to stay away from games of chance.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

You could sense it coming. The tempo changed. Boston was unable to control the puck, or execute any offense at all in the last 8 minutes. Recchi logged far too many minutes late. Chara looked lost. Lanes weren't obstructed. Thomas was on an island.

Unfortunately his headstand only lasted 59 minutes and 42 seconds.

This series is now over. Boston needed to steal 2 games like this early in the series on Thomas' back. They won't be gifted more opportunities like this.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Dude, come on...have a little faith. You can't call the series over because they lost Game 1 with 20 seconds left. Boston is far to good of a squad to roll over and die after 60 minutes.

As a Habs fan, I have to agree with Elessar. Being up by one or two games on Boston doesn't win you the series.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I am a devout cynic. My cynicism is the type which can only be honed to a fine edge with a rare trifecta of fan-ship and ideals. Cult worship of the Red Sox, fandom since boyhood of the Bills, and the victory-less wasteland of libertarianism has hard-formed my stone.

When I objectively broke down this series long before the puck was dropped, I agreed with Talya that Boston was generally over-matched, and found themselves in a catch-22 when is came down to over-all strategy.

Boston's only chance in this series was (is?) for Tim Thomas to steal two games early. Tonight set itself up as one of those games. I think we can all agree that most (all?) games with 5 or more goals scored will likely be in Vancouver's favor. I think we can also agree that we won't see many more opportunities like this for the Bruins.

At this point, I'm calling the series: Ice Niggers 4, Real People 1.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

That was a very sloppy game...no one could control the puck. I'm just learning the nuances of the game of hockey, but I've not seen such a haphazard game in a while. The heroes of the game? Thomas and Luongo!

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"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

Do the Sedin brothers ever leave the ice? They seemed to be out for quite a while.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

Evidently. They weren't on the ice for Vancouver's goal.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Yay for the geographically closest NHL team to me!

I still can't believe Boston made it out of the first round. I don't know what to think now.

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Raell Kromwell

Well, it took a goal scored offside in game 7 (where the linesman missed the offside call) to get boston past the first round.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Hasn't the Oliver Cup been awarded yet?

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

I knew you were going to bring that up sooner or later ...none of my Habs fans friends will shut up about that.

Game 2 was very exciting...

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

The "B" on the sweater stands for "Bully". Now that's old school Boston Hockey. Gotta love the toughness Shawn Thorton brings to this team.

Also, Tim Thomas is a Golden God.

http://video.nhl.com/videocenter/console?catid=15&id=117184

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

I prefer losing 8-1 than 1-0 or 3-2, though. In all cases, it's just a loss, but with the former, you simply write it off and come back to play your A game the next day. With the latter, you wonder what you could have done differently, and worry that you gave it your all and the other team simply beat you when it matters.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I'm a Boston sports fan, and I kind of gave up on hockey and the Bruins years back. But I'm going to be a total hypocrite and bandwagoner and say, "Go Bruins!!!" Nice two straight games. Keep it up and bring the Cup back to Beantown!