Stanley Cup Finals: Boston Bruins Keep Up with Canucks' but Lose Game 1

We saw the Canucks only once this year, and we knew we beat them with Tim Thomas allowing the first and only goal of his career against Vancouver after shutting them out in two previous match-ups.

But we heard it all about the Canucks. Many of us have seen them in games throughout this thrilling 2011 edition of the Stanley Cup playoffs. This team is stacked from top to bottom. There's the Sedin twins, who seem to be telepathic with one another—Henrik the playmaker and Daniel the goal-scorer.

Ryan Kesler is a premier two-way player in the NHL, he's a 40-goal scorer and ticks along with 100 percent effort all game long. Then they have Kevin Bieksa, Dan Hamhuis, and Christian Ehrhoff on their loaded back-end that jump right into the Vancouver's offensive rush. They also have Roberto Luongo, who has had a career of ups and downs, but is among the three Vezina Trophy nominees along with Thomas.

Rightfully so, I must add, and last night we saw why.

Vancouver is fast and can play with any team at any style, they are puck-possession professionals. And last night Boston got a face full of that. Not to mention that Alex Burrows got a mouthful of Patrice Bergeron's finger.

The Bruins played well for most of the game, skated with the Canucks and had plenty of scoring chances themselves. They played with an edge and it didn't take long before either team grew a disliking for one another.

After all, it is the Stanley Cup Finals.

But once the third period came and progressed, the Canucks continued their relentless pressure and the Bruins countered fewer times. They were just simply gassed, and it's hard to ask Thomas to continue to stand on his head after yet another stellar performance from him in net.

With 18.5 seconds left, Raffi Torres scored the game-winner, after a great play by Kesler to get the puck to Jannik Hansen's set-up to Torres in front.

Tough to take a goal with so little time left in the game, so close to sending it to overtime scoreless. But despite how well the Bruins performed for most of it, they were far from playing the near-perfect game that they did against Tampa Bay last Friday.

Their power play again was garbage. They had six power play opportunities and came up empty. Among those six power plays was a lengthy five-on-three advantage, as well as a four-minute five-on-four power play.

We have seen Chara move down low in front of the net for the man-advantage since the Eastern Conference Finals, and it certainly has improved the power plays even if there are no goals to show for it. However, Claude put Chara on the point during the five-on-three advantage during an opportunity that they had to capitalize on against Vancouver.

Putting Chara down low on previous power plays allowed the Canucks' penalty killers to focus on him, opening up space for the rest of the special teams to move the puck and get shots through. On a five-on-three that would have been a huge advantage.

Again, Mark Recchi got significant power play time, 3:34 to be exact, and generated nothing. Milan Lucic got 3:27 of power play time and, unless he's wreaking havoc in front of the net, he brought nothing either. Tyler Seguin got 1:20 of power play ice time, but did nothing on that 5-on-3 man advantage, which is just no excuse.

Recchi on that two-man advantage was too far away from net and posed no real threat. Seguin at least brings creative play-making and a great shot, and it's frustrating to see that he wasn't out there while Recchi was. It's not like the kid could make the power play any worse than it is.

Even on even-strength play, Recchi is just too slow out there. I like him and think his presence is extremely important to this team, leadership-wise, but the Bruins need speed out there if they want to have any chance at beating this Canucks team.

Recchi doesn't have it and is even turning the puck over more. Peverley has been skating with the Bergeron line often, substituting for Recchi at times, but that needs to be a permanent change. Seguin should stay on that third line, drop Recchi down to the fourth line and maybe give Rex some shifts in place of Ryder or Seguin from time to time on the third line.

But the top two lines for the Bruins will be logging some heavy minutes here on out and playing against the speedy threats of Vancouver. That is just no place for the slower legs of Recchi.

The Bruins had a slight advantage on face-offs, winning 36 to Vancouver's 28 and that needs to improve as well—no easy task as Vancouver is tough on the draw, too.

Tough task ahead of Boston if they want to bring the Stanley Cup back for the first time since 1972, but they can do it. Anything can happen, and the Bruins showed they can play with the Canucks.

They are a resilient and confident group, and they certainly will be put to the test.