Bruins-Canucks: Could They Really Meet in the Stanley Cup Finals Again?

Entering Thursday night’s action, only five NHL teams in each conference had a positive scoring differential on the year.

The Toronto Maple Leafs, who may have already peaked for this season, hastily joined that group with a 4-0 win over Winnipeg, but they need not flatter themselves with a mere plus-one to their credit.

Regardless, if this trend were to hold up through the second half of the regular season, it will be the first time since 1997-98 that a majority of the NHL’s teams allow more goals than they collect.

Of the few teams who are safely in the black, even fewer are a shoo-in to swell up their positive differential to much greater heights.

For that reason, Saturday afternoon’s rematch of the 2011 Stanley Cup finals between the Boston Bruins and the Vancouver Canucks has a better chance of previewing the 2012 finals than most would have assumed.

Only five NHL teams have a net gain of 20 or more, with Boston and Vancouver being two of the four with at least 30 more cumulative goals than the opposition. The Bruins lead the league with an otherworldly plus-69 and the Canucks trail only the Detroit Red Wings for the best difference in the Western Conference.

With so few sets of formidable fangs amongst their competitors, the Bruins and Canucks may indeed have the requisite supplies and fortunate path to pull off what Detroit and the Pittsburgh Penguins did in 2008 and 2009.

It’s easy enough to scoff that the Bruins don’t have the same celestial depth chart as the Sidney Crosby- and Evgeni Malkin-led Penguins. It’s technically true that Vancouver has not sculpted Detroit’s long run of consistency as a contender.

In turn, one can understandably assume that franchises like the Penguins and Red Wings can withstand two consecutive nine-month campaigns when others cannot. But upon further review, the last two back-to-back conference champions were not as otherworldly as they appeared.

The 2008-09 Penguins had caught a second wind in the homestretch after replacing head coach Michel Therrien with Dan Bylsma on Feb. 15. Under Bylsma, Pittsburgh went 18-3-0 to finish the regular season and went from potential playoff no-shows to hosts of the first round.

From there, the Penguins dispatched their intrastate rivals from Philadelphia, bumped the Washington Capitals in seven games and swept an out-of-the-blue Carolina team that had nothing left in its tank after two seven-game upsets.

Detroit had to deal with a playoff novice from Columbus, an upset-minded Anaheim team and a burgeoning contender from Chicago that hadn’t felt the last of its growing pains.

And unlike Pittsburgh, neither of the current reigning finalists needed to make a drastic personnel move to shake off their initial lull.

After hitting the nadir of their season with a 3-7-0 record at the end of October, the Bruins surmounted the last of their post-championship hangover and dissolved all of its evidence. A subsequent 23-3-1 run now has them in a footrace with the New York Rangers for the league’s best winning percentage.

Similarly, Vancouver was 6-7-1 in the aftermath of a 3-2 loss in St. Louis Nov. 4. In the two months since then, the Canucks have ascended to the summit of the Western Conference on a 19-6-2 tear.

Based on the midseason, only three teams per conference can derail the Bruins’ or Canucks’ return trip to the championship round without issuing a continental shock. But in some cases, it could still be labeled a mild upset not unlike Boston’s triumph over Vancouver last June.

Out east, two of the main threats are missing their captain and arguably their most leaned-on player, namely Philadelphia’s Chris Pronger and Pittsburgh’s Crosby. The Flyers, in particular, could easily, once again, see their volcanic offense cancelled out by a lack of Pronger and a lack of stability in the crease.

Even without Crosby, the Penguins are still capable of laying claim to a Prince of Wales Trophy, although they are an iffy 5-5-0 since Crosby returned to injured reserve.

But by all accounts, the Rangers are the biggest threat to the Bruins’ title defense, if not their only certifiable obstacle on the path to another Cup finals appearance. They are the only team in the Eastern Conference that can match Boston both in the way of stingy goaltending and overwhelming physicality, two nearly indispensable assets in the playoffs.

In addition, goaltender Henrik Lundqvist has already neutralized the Bruins for the better part of the last three-plus years.

Then again, Lundqvist and his praetorian guards have not yet faced this year’s Boston team, one that has been flaunting its depth several times too many for it to be ruled an accident.

Boston, which has six double-digit goal-getters and nine skaters with at least 20 points, has scored six goals or more in 11 of its first 37 outings. Overall, with a pair of reliable stoppers in Tuukka Rask and Tim Thomas, the Bruins have pitched an NHL-leading seven shutouts and confined their opponents to two goals or fewer on 26 occasions.

Most frighteningly, the Bruins still have games in hand on all of their conference cohabitants. And the likes of first-line center David Krejci, whose active hot streak has inflated his scoring log to 9-19-28, has only recently approached the top of his game.

Out west, Detroit is still a threat as usual and Jimmy Howard has the transcript and support to make one think he could outduel Roberto Luongo and stifle Vancouver’s high-pressure offense in a best-of-seven bout.

San Jose is still hungry and could still prove it has learned from past failures at any time. And the Chicago Blackhawks, mediocre goaltending aside, are retooled and refreshed with a new group around their 2010 Cup-winning nucleus.

But given the collective intensity of Andrew Alberts, Kevin Bieksa, Alexander Edler, Jannik Hansen, Maxim Lapierre and Dale Weise, a Canucks’ series with the Red Wings, Sharks or Blackhawks could go either way. The ability of those three teams to mute Vancouver’s explosive offense could be questioned as well.

At the halfway mark of their 2011-12 schedule, the Canucks already have six men with double digits in the goal column, with Cody Hodgson one strike away from joining that club. And just like Boston, they have nine skaters boasting 20 or more points with Dan Hamhuis next in line.

One of those not yet in either club, Sami Salo, is nonetheless an integral part of Vancouver’s league-leading power play. Ditto October acquisition David Booth, who is presently sidelined with a lower-body injury but should add another lethal layer to the lineup come playoff time if his timetable to return runs on schedule.

For those parties, when the time comes to face the other giants of their conference in May, the X-factor will be a combination of stamina and pouncing on the good bounces.

Even before the start of this season, let alone the first week of November, this Saturday’s matchup was primed to be nothing more than just another game and an opportunity for a quick TV retrospective before face-off.

Back then, it was somewhere between acceptable and obligatory to dismiss the notion of either the Bruins or Canucks reaching the final frontier of the 2011-12 season. That scenario now looks less likely than seeing one, but not necessarily both, back in the championship this spring.

But now, with the homestretch on the horizon, the prospect of a genuine championship rematch is anything but impossible.