NHL Playoffs 2012: Did the Boston Bruins Ruin the Canucks' Season in January?

The Boston Bruins ended the Vancouver Canucks' season last year when they won the Stanley Cup after a grueling seven-game series, and they may have ruined the Canucks' season this year too, only in January.

Canucks general manager Mike Gillis said at the team's end-of-the-year press conference on Tuesday that the game in Boston on January 7, which the Canucks won 4-3, drained them emotionally and they didn't recover well from it.

Per the Vancouver Sun:

"

I really felt the game in Boston for some reason was such an emotional and challenging game, it was almost like playing a Stanley Cup final game in the middle of the season and from that point on I don't think our team ever really collectively got their emotions together.

We had some injuries that disaffected us and we just didn't seem to play consistently as well from that point...

"

It may seem crazy to blame a regular-season game in January on your team's struggles the rest of the way, but in this case Gillis is very accurate.

The buildup to that game was intense, as both fanbases took shots at each other and players didn't hold back when talking about the other side too.

Gillis' point about the game being so emotional is spot on. The Canucks tried to downplay the importance of the game in the days leading up to it, but it was no secret that they wanted to win this game very badly.

You also had the Roberto Luongo not starting in net situation to deal with, which created a lot of buzz because fans thought he was afraid to play in Boston after going 0-3 at TD Garden during the Stanley Cup Final.

The Canucks played that game against the Bruins like it was a Game 7 of the Cup final, and when you do that in January, the emotional drain on the team will be severe.

After the emotional seven-game Cup final between these two teams last year, any games in the immediate future with the Bruins and Canucks are going to be full of hate.

You can point to the controversial Cody Hodgson trade as a moment when the Canucks' season began to fall apart, but the January meeting with the Bruins was certainly the beginning of the end for Vancouver.

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Nicholas Goss is a Boston Bruins Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report and has covered the team firsthand throughout the season. He was also the organization's on-site reporter for the 2011 Stanley Cup Final in Boston.