As the losers of Game 7 at home, Canucks need to take a long look in the mirror.
VANCOUVER — We’ll begin with a little context: this was the third time in the past seven Stanley Cup finals that a Western Canadian team had played and lost a Game 7.
So you folks in Calgary and Edmonton — heck, we’ll throw in Ottawa, five-game losers the ’07 — can take that pain you felt when your clubs failed in their magical, unexpected Stanley Cup bids, and multiply it by, oh, about 10. Because Vancouver expected this.
In fact, we’d go as far as to say they’d been counting their chickens out here since about December. Maybe that’s why they wrecked the place last night.
This was the National Hockey League’s best team, that scored the most goals and allowed the least — until about two weeks ago, when it all boomeranged like a bad Roberto Luongo quote.
"This team is the best team I’ve been on, by far," said their captain, Henrik Sedin, silent in a 4-0, series clinching win for the Boston Bruins. "We’ve grown up here, and become a team here. We wanted to win it, for us foremost, but for everyone who has been following us. It’s extremely disappointing."
Well, maybe not EVERY one of their followers. Just the ones who don’t burn police cars.
Off the ice, the twins handled themselves with more class than many of their teammates, standing in to be interviewed after every practice, every win and — especially — every loss. In 25 years I’ve not seen two players who are more accountable than Henrik and Daniel, who took turns shouldering the blame for this loss in two languages Wednesday evening, for as long as it took to satisfy every … last …journalist.
On the ice however, they were a metaphor for this flagging Canucks team. Two Art Ross Trophy winners who simply did not produce in this Stanley Cup final commensurate with the way they had all season long.
"Thomas stood tall, and again, it’s disappointing," said Daniel of Tim Thomas, the Bruins goalie who the Conn Smythe Award in a landslide. "It’s our job to score, and those are the chances we need to put in.
"We want to be the guys to win games for this team. Tonight we didn’t do that," Daniel said. "There are no excuses — it’s our job. Our only job is to score, and we didn’t do it."
Whether it was the punishment meted out by the giant Zdeno Chara, in whose paws, the raised Stanley Cup looked like a pony-keg Wednesday. Or Thomas, who allowed less goals in this seven-game final than, wait for it, any goalie in the history of the game with just eight.
Daniel finished with a goal and four points. Henrik, the NHL assists leader this season did not have a single helper in this final, mustering just one meaningless goal in a Game 6 blowout.
The great Ryan Kesler disappeared, partially due to injury, with one assist in seven ineffective games. Goalie Roberto Luongo was either awful or great through six games, then average at best when it really counted in Game 7.
He was completely outdueled by Thomas, and didn’t battle hard enough in Game 7, by our estimation. And in case you weren’t sure if Luongo is a bit of a head case, these were his post-series observations:
"Playoffs, the last couple of months, has been the hardest thing I’ve had to deal with in my professional career," he said, as if the need for mental toughness were some great revelation. "Mentally, it’s just a grind the whole time. Much tougher mentally than physically. I’ve learned a lot about myself the last couple of months."
Sadly, so have Canucks fans.
With 11 years left on his contract ($5.33 million cap hit), it’s true what they say: We Are All Canucks. Or, at least, he is — for a long, long time.
Despite bi-polar work from Luongo, Vancouver could still have won this. If only they could have squeezed a pea past Thomas, the 37-year-old battler who was just this side of perfect in this series.
"We had our shots, definitely had our shots," said Kesler. "Thomas played great. He stopped everything he needed to."
And, largely, the hockey world is fine with that.
From Kesler’s surly persona, to Alex Burrows’ finger biting, diving and endless head-snaps, to Maxim Lapierre’s embellishments and fake injuries, to Raffi Torres knack for hitting only the unsuspecting — wait, we’re getting to our point — to Luongo’s childish quotes about Thomas not "pumping his tires," to the legit tough Kevin Bieksa’s two playoff fights coming against pacifists Viktor Stalberg and Patrick Marleau, to teammates who allowed the Sedins to be abused throughout this series by little Brad Marchand and never stood up for them, to a GM in Mike Gillis who never once credited any of his predecessors with acquiring all of the best players on this team, the Canucks wore the villain’s hat well in this series.
Of course, there are many fine people inside this organization who don’t deserve to be painted with that brush, but the perception does not happen by fluke or fix. It is earned, and accurate.
The outside hockey world arrived in Vancouver like they arrive in any Cup town, ready to watch the best games of the year. But as a group, almost to the person they came to dislike so many elements of this team, that in the end they fought not to dislike the team itself.
Though the Canucks, only the fourth team in history to lose a final Game 7 at home, clearly were not better than Boston, this is still a fine team that could win the West again next year. It would behoove them however, to take a long look in the mirror this summer.
Because karma can be a real bear sometimes.
Like this time, for instance.
