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Five Thoughts on a Stanley Cup clinching night for Boston

Boston Bruins v Vancouver Canucks - Game Seven

VANCOUVER, BC - JUNE 15: Tim Thomas #30 of the Boston Bruins is awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy after defeating the Vancouver Canucks in Game Seven of the 2011 NHL Stanley Cup Final at Rogers Arena on June 15, 2011 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The Boston Bruins defeated the Vancouver Canucks 4 to 0. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

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An incredible run, an incredible team effort, a set of incredible performances, and one Stanley Cup championship to last a lifetime. Give it up to the Boston Bruins who fought hard all playoffs and made the adjustments necessary to win and did what no other team could do this year. Boston’s 4-0 Game 7 win showed what they had all series long in that when they get rolling, they’re tough to beat. This year, they were the toughest to knock off.

1. What more can be said about Tim Thomas? A 37-save shutout on the road in Game 7 in the Stanley Cup finals is an unbelievable way to close out a season. A road shutout in Game 7 of the Cup finals is a first in NHL history. He’s also the oldest Conn Smtyhe Trophy winner in history and just the second American to win it. With the Stanley Cup and Conn Smythe Trophy locked up, the only one left for him to win now is the Vezina Trophy. If/when Thomas wins that he’ll be the first goalie since Bernie Parent in the 1970s to sweep those three awards in the same year. That’s a pretty fantastic year.

2. A couple more fascinating tidbits on Thomas’ accomplishments this postseason brought to my attention by a friend of mine (Thanks Yuri). Thomas is the first American starting goalie to win the Stanley Cup since Mike Richter did it in 1994 with the Rangers. The other American Conn Smythe Trophy winner was Brian Leetch who also did that in 1994 for the New York Rangers. The Rangers opponent that year, of course, was none other than Vancouver.

If I’m on the Vancouver Canucks and my team makes a deep run in the playoffs again, I know I’d start rooting against teams with American goalies. Imagine the freakout that would ensue should the Canucks make the Cup finals against the Buffalo Sabres in the near future.

3. It’s pretty easy to make a scapegoat out of Roberto Luongo. He was solid, even great, in three games in this series. He was awful, terrible, and useless in three others. Tonight he wasn’t flawless and the Bruins took advantage of that. Of course there were other problems he had to deal with as well. Through seven games of the Stanley Cup finals Luongo had just eight goals scored in support of him and the Canucks were shutout twice themselves.

To give you an idea of how poorly the offense played here’s a fun stat: Roberto Luongo was tied for third on the Canucks in goals scored in the finals with zero. He was tied with 17 other players. That kind of offense, regardless of how well they played tight, defensive hockey in their three wins, is never going to get it done in a seven game series. Luongo will eat a lot of the blame, but there’s a lot of forwards in the Canucks locker room that have some soul searching to do.

4. How fun is it to be Patrice Bergeron? It’s got to be really awesomely fun to be that good at hockey. He’s won a gold medal at the World Junior Championships, an Olympic gold medal in 2010 with Team Canada, and now the Stanley Cup with the Bruins. For a guy whose career was put in doubt thanks to a major concussion years ago at the hands of then Flyers defenseman Randy Jones, Bergeron’s bounced back from that to be the Bruins’ most steady two-way forward.

He scores, he assists, he wins faceoffs, he defends against opposing team’s top centers. Having him score two goals, including the game-winner, in Game 7 was a perfect coda to what’s been a fantastic season for him.

5. And now for the sad side show that developed in Vancouver after the game as hordes of moron fans and non-fans alike decided rioting was the best way to grieve. When you mix loads of alcohol, a reported number of 100,000 people in the streets, and a soul-crushing loss in a city where fans are known to take things a little bit too personal when it comes to hockey you get what happened last night.

The observations that there were anarachist jerks mixed in with the crowd to help feed the ill feelings that lurk in the hearts of some fans is not shocking, especially if what CTV in Canada reported was true about some of those being the same band of cretins that stirred things up at the G20 summit in Toronto last summer.

I’d like to believe that the vast majority of hockey fans in Vancouver went home peaceably to drown their sorrows with their loved ones and friends, but the sheer number of jerks clad in Canucks gear caught on video and in photographs starting trouble is hugely disappointing. I’m sure all hockey fans are proud that this pack of punks helped give everyone in Vancouver and all over the NHL landscape a bad name.