Boston Bruins vs. Vancouver Canucks: Welcome Home Milan Lucic

The Boston Bruins came to Vancouver on a three-game win streak and hope to extend it to four against the top seeded Western Vancouver Canucks.

So far, the Canucks have been on a win-one-lose-one pattern dating back to Feb. 7th with the Ottawa Senators.  Since that time, the Canucks have not been able to muster back-to-back wins.  The Bruins were looking to continue that trend as Vancouver did win their last contest with the St. Louis Blues.

Milan Lucic Night

Lucic visited his old stomping grounds where he played with the Vancouver Giants of the WHL.  Here he earned the respect of his fans, became MVP of the 2006 Memorial Cup and made his name to pave his way into the NHL.

They honored Milan with a Milan Lucic Night at Pacific Coliseum when they played, oddly enough, the Chilliwack Bruins.  The Bruins defeated the Giants, but I have to admit, THAT is irony.

To say that Lucic, the Bruins' forward, was coming home would have been a welcome note to the Canuck faithful.  Unfortunately for them, Lucic was coming home for a visit and he was planning to light up the lamps under Roberto Luongo.

The Game

First Period

The Canucks opened the scoring late in the first period.  Both goalies were holding their own and it took the Canucks crashing the net and getting in dirty to solve Tim Thomas and open the scoring.

Manny Malhotra was right at Thomas' left side when he got the rebound off Thomas' left pad to put the Canucks up 1-0.

The goal was the Canucks' first ever goal against Thomas.

Throughout the game, the Bruins were getting hit around pretty good by the Canucks.  In particular, Raffe Torres was a one-man wrecking ball with noticeable hits on Dennis Seidenberg and Tomas Kaberle.

One of the best hits that I have seen in the game was by Victor Oreskovich on Andrew Ference behind the Bruins' net.  Good clean hit that took Ference off his skates. 

Second Period

The Bruins tied it up with a goal from Nathan Horton.  Kaberle let one fly off net to Lucic behind the net.  Lucic passed the puck to Horton who quickly shot it at the net.  Luongo stopped the first one, but couldn't position himself to stop Horton getting the rebound to count it and tie the game at one apiece.

The goal also resulted in Kaberle's first point as a Bruin.

Third Period

With less than five minutes left in the game, Lucic scored what turned out to be the game-winner.  David Krejci skated from his own zone, past Luongo's right side and behind the net.  He emerged on Luoungo's left side and passed the puck to Seidenberg.  Seidenberg let fly a shot stopped by Luongo but both Horton and Lucic were right at Luongo's left side.  Lucic quickly popped it in.  2-1 Bruins. 

The Bruins iced the game with an empty netter by Patrice Bergeron with just 1:13 left in the game.  Lucic assisted in the goal, giving him his third point of the night. 3-1 Bruins.

Not to be outdone, Alexandre Burrows fired a shot at the net and Thomas got enough to have the puck trickle behind him, but both he and Zdeno Chara alertly cleared the puck from the goal line with 34 seconds left.  The puck did not go past the line and the final score was 3-1.

The win was the Bruins' fourth in a row and fitting to see Lucic, a native of Vancouver, involved in all three Bruins goals.

Thomas improved his stats, stopping 27 of 28 shots on goal.  His save percentage improved to .939 percent and goals against average of 1.97, both tops in the league.

Next up is Edmonton as the Bs take on the Oilers tonight.  Fortunately, Boston did not have far to travel to take on the Oilers.

The two top picks of Tyler Seguin and Taylor Hall of the 2010 draft will face one another for the first and only time this season.

The Good

Boston kept their composure and shut down the potent power play of the Canucks.

The Bad

Boston got knocked around a little before they started hitting back, but still got out-hit.  The Canucks were lacking in their core with a rash of injuries.  Kevin Bieksa was out with an eye injury.  Andrew Alberts suffered a broken wrist.  Alex Elder had a back injury.

The Ugly

Not much ugly in this game for the Bs.  They played well.

My Take

Overall, the Bruins played a disciplined game and minimized their mistakes.  Chara kept the Sedin twins at bay and that took a lot of offense away from the Canucks.  I would love to see more of this happening for the rest of the season and in the playoffs.

This is Cory Ducey saying "Hit Hard, But Keep It Clean"