Stanley Cup Finals 2011: Milan Lucic and Mark Recchi Can't Point Fingers

Mark Recchi’s night in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals would have been seamlessly exemplary, were it not for one momentary loss of self-control.

As part of the Boston Bruins’ 8-1 shellacking of the Vancouver Canucks, Recchi put four opponents on the boards, put two shots on net and put two in the net, including a power-play strike that would stand as the clincher. He also delighted the TD Garden masses by throwing one of those four clean body checks at Alexandre Burrows with a mere 2:55 off the clock in the first period.

When Shawn Thornton, taking his first taste of game action since the Philadelphia series, threw another clean hit on Burrows 10 seconds after Recchi, one would think closure had been attained in that saga. If not then, certainly by the time the Bruins started tuning the mesh behind Roberto Luongo and ran away with Monday night’s game to create a whole new series.

Yet of all people, Recchi, whom all of the Spoked-Bs rightly look up to, squandered that closure and reopened the Burrows-Patrice Bergeron-Maxim Lapierre mess. He had to poke Lapierre’s kisser with his glove after a first-period whistle, just to remind him that he and the rest of the Boston faithful did not appreciate Lapierre doing the same to Bergeron in the previous game.

There was simply no need for that, especially considering Recchi had already plastered Burrows against the boards earlier in the stanza. But at least Recchi’s indiscretion occurred when it was still a scoreless contest.

By comparison, Milan Lucic stoked the flame more egregiously with 8:44 remaining in the third period, at which point Boston was safeguarding a 4-0 lead.

Translation: The Bruins had already kicked plenty of proper ice chips over the Canucks, who by then had peeved them not only through Burrows and his tainted Game 2 heroics, but also with Aaron Rome’s injurious hit on Nathan Horton. And yet, during a post-whistle dust-up behind Tim Thomas’ cage, Lucic couldn’t help but doff his gloves and wave his free fingers in Burrows’ face.

Doesn’t this go against the universally prescribed remedy for when an antagonist acts like a group of junior high jocks? Why would any of the Bruins sink to Burrows and Lapierre’s level and risk giving their adversaries the satisfaction when they could, and indubitably did, reap a cleaner form of satisfaction for themselves on the scoreboard?

Granted, Burrows was not suspended for biting Bergeron’s finger in Game 1 the way he should have been. That, along with his subsequent three-point performance and overtime strike in Game 2, got in Boston’s way of properly avenging the incident. And no one with Black-and-Gold blood could have been asked to outright ignore Lapierre’s juvenile way of reveling in his teammate’s exemption from justice.

Even so, that should have done nothing more than light a fire under the Bruins, which they would use to reheat their cold acetylene twigs. That’s exactly what they did, with additional fuel stemming from Thornton’s presence and Horton’s unscheduled absence for the remaining 44:53 of Game 3.

But because Recchi and Lucic took a moment to go out of their way and reiterate that they were still letting Burrows and Lapierre’s antics sting that badly, they have potentially spawned more motivation in the Vancouver dressing room.

All that when, clearly, the only thing the Bruins needed was to accept the same gift of incentive that Lapierre had foolishly handed them in the exact same fashion during Game 2.

For his part, Lucic logged two shots, a plus-two rating, three hits and a takeaway on Monday. But he also put four giveaways and 16 penalty minutes on his tab, with 14 of those minutes resulting from the Burrows brouhaha. He also committed as many slashing infractions on the night as Recchi scored goals.

Next time, Lucic ought to consider staying on the ice and using that stick the same way Recchi did at 4:22 of the second period and 17:39 of the third. At least the elder statesman seemed to move on quickly once the Bruins started hurting Vancouver in the right area, high above the center faceoff circle.