From NEHJ: Bruins celebrate first Stanley Cup in 39 years
It was the belief of many that the events of May 14, 2010, would leave an indelible mark on the Boston Bruins, a permanent scar, an eternal reminder of one of the biggest choke-jobs in the sport of hockey’s grand history.
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Bruins center Patrice Bergeron celebrates after Game 7. (Getty) |
On that fateful night, the Black and Gold jumped to a 3-0 lead
in Game 7 of their conference semifinals series with the
Philadelphia Flyers, giving TD Garden a sense of security equally
as false as the one they created when ahead three games to none.
Philadelphia scored four consecutive goals against Tuukka Rask and
the beleaguered Bruins, who collapsed in the face of adversity to
complete the epic meltdown.
When the final horn sounded, it didn’t just signal the end
of the game, the series or even the season. It was a blaring
announcement that a once-proud franchise had reached its lowest,
most indescribably embarrassing point in 86 years of existence.
As a sea of rally towels from the shocked masses in the building
poured onto the ice, it was as symbolic a gesture as any. New
England was ready to give up all hope of the Bruins winning a
championship ever again.
My, oh, my, what a difference a year makes. They say a tiger
can’t change his stripes, but the Bruins proved in the span
of precisely 398 days that a hockey team can, completing their
dramatic, improbable turnaround June 15 in Vancouver with a 4-0
victory in Game 7 of the finals, capturing the Stanley Cup for the
first time in 39 years.
From the moment the offseason began last summer until this
year’s trade deadline, Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli
made the right move at every turn, though not everyone was singing
his praises at the time of each transaction.
Nathan Horton arrived from the Panthers with the reputation of
possessing a wealth of talent but a lacking drive. Gregory Campbell
was supposed to be a throw-in. Neither forward had a single playoff
game on their resume.
With Tuukka Rask emerging last season, an aging and injured Tim
Thomas was supposed to be expendable. So was Michael Ryder, who as
of August was expected to be demoted to the AHL in order to solve
the Bruins’ salary-cap woes.
When Chiarelli began wheeling and dealing in February, the
questions continued: Was Chris Kelly worth giving up a second-round
pick to the Senators for? Could Rich Peverley, a standout on the
perennially putrid Thrashers, make a difference in a smaller role
on a Cup contender? Was Tomas Kaberle really worth the king’s
ransom Chiarelli forked over to Toronto?
Now, Bruins fans must ask themselves this: Would a drought that
spanned nearly four decades be over if Chiarelli hadn’t made
each and every one of those moves?
Horton was a stud in his first trip to the playoffs, playing the
role of hero time and time again with three game-winning goals, two
of which came in Game 7s. Campbell was an unsung hero on the fourth
line and contributed hugely on the penalty kill. The
oft-inconsistent Ryder brought it every night at both ends of the
ice.
Kelly nearly tripled his offensive output, going from five points
in 24 regular-season games with the Bruins to 13 points in 25
playoff games. Peverley managed to put up points despite playing on
three different lines throughout the postseason. After a rocky
start, Kaberle finished the playoffs second on the team in assists
and first in points among defenseman.
And while all of those individuals played key roles, none of them
can even hold a candle to what Thomas accomplished this spring. The
37-year-old netminder’s history-making playoff run backboned
the Bruins to hockey glory, as he stood on his head in every
series, every game and every period along the way.
But there was one non-move by Chiarelli that everyone thought
spelled doom for the Bruins: keeping coach Claude Julien. The
Bruins’ bench boss was the recipient of nearly all the blame
for last year’s collapse against the Flyers. Presumed to be
too defensive-minded, a poor motivator and unable to change on the
fly, Julien was public enemy No. 1 among Boston’s faithful
fans, who wanted nothing more than to see the coach canned.
This year, we saw a different approach from the man calling the
shots behind the Bruins’ bench.
“You do different things when you learn more about your team
and you learn more about the experiences you’ve been
through,” Julien said. “And we talk about players going
through adversity, coaches go through adversity too and they learn
from those situations. But there’s certain things you can
control and some you can’t. The one thing we were able to
control this year is the fact that we had some depth and we felt we
had the right players in our locker room. Whenever somebody got
injured and we brought somebody in, they had an impact.”
But not every change Julien made was a forced one. After dropping
the first two games of the first round against Montreal, the coach
revamped his defensive pairings, putting Dennis Seidenberg
alongside Zdeno Chara.
“Early in the playoffs, we really felt like in order for us
to win we had to shut down teams,” Julien said. “And at
that point, we decided that it was important to put Seidenberg with
Chara. We thought that that would be a wall that not too many
people could get through.
“So we made that change, and with the other pairs, we really
felt comfortable that we’re able to handle whatever other
teams were going to throw at us. So you make those adjustments.
Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t. It worked for us
this year and gave us what we wanted.”
After narrowly squeaking past the Canadiens with a thrilling Game
7 win on home ice, it was time to erase some demons as a rematch
with the Flyers loomed. The Bruins vanquished the black cloud
that’d been hanging over their heads for the better part of a
year, sweeping Philadelphia to move on to the conference finals for
the first time since 1992.
“It’s nice that we’re not going to have to
answer any more of those questions and we can put that behind
us,” Milan Lucic said after the Bruins defeated the Flyers,
5-1, in Game 4. “I think we learned a lot from last year,
that experience, and I think it made us a more determined hockey
club.”
That determination carried over into their battle with the Tampa
Bay Lightning to advance to the Stanley Cup Finals, as the Bruins
not only kept the likes of superstars Vincent Lecavalier, Martin
St. Louis and Steven Stamkos in check but also managed to win their
second Game 7 of the postseason — a stage on which
they’d failed so many times in years past.
“We believed in ourselves, and we were confident that we
could do it,” said Patrice Bergeron, who missed the first two
games of the series with a concussion. “There was a lot of
doubters. Even tonight, looking on the outside, a lot of people
were thinking Tampa was going to win. It was a tough game and a
tough series. But no one said it was going to be easy to get to the
finals, and we found a way.”
It was there that the Bruins faced their biggest challenge yet.
Unlike their first three opponents in the playoffs, the Canucks
were a team that seemingly didn’t have any holes.
Vancouver was stacked up front with the likes of Ryan Kesler,
reigning Hart Trophy winner Henrik Sedin and his twin brother,
Daniel. Led by Kevin Bieksa on defense, the Canucks’ blue
line was so deep that Keith Ballard — a No. 1 during his days
in Florida — was eighth on their depth chart. Add Vezina
Trophy nominee Roberto Luongo in goal to that list, and it was no
wonder Vancouver finished the regular season with the
President’s Trophy.
One thing the Bruins lacked, however, was a reason to hate the
Canucks. This wasn’t a detested rival like the Canadiens or
Flyers, two teams that brought out a raw, intense display of
emotion from the Black and Gold. Instead, it was a squad the Bruins
clashed with just three times in the past four seasons.
Luckily, it didn’t take long for that to change. At the
conclusion of the first period in Game 1, a scrum began to form
behind Thomas’ net. In the midst of widespread bickering,
Alex Burrows bit Bergeron’s finger. Bad blood had officially
been formed and remained for the duration of the series.
To the surprise of many, the winger wasn’t reprimanded for
his actions, giving him the opportunity to chip in three points in
Game 2, including the game-winning goal in overtime as Vancouver
took a 2-0 series lead.
Having to win four of the next five games against the top team in
the NHL, the uphill climb the Bruins faced was steep enough as it
is. When Aaron Rome’s devastating hit on Horton knocked
Boston’s clutch performer out for the rest of the series with
a concussion, it easily could have been the deathblow for the
Bruins.
Instead, it was a rallying cry. The Bruins possessed more heart,
courage and resilience than any other squad in the Hub of Hockey in
the past four decades. While their predecessors would have wilted
in the face of such adversity, this edition of the Black and Gold
did just the opposite, fighting back to tie the series by
outscoring the Canucks 12-1 in Games 3 and 4 on home ice.
As if Vancouver’s dastardly behavior on the ice wasn’t
enough to earn them scorn, their off-ice theatrics continued as the
series wore on. Coach Alain Vigneault remained an incessant whiner
throughout, complaining about Thomas’ aggressive style of
play and even going as far as to poke fun at Horton for admiring
his pass before getting laid out by Rome.
After Vancouver won again at home to take a 3-2 series lead with a
1-0 win, Luongo — the same goalie who allowed 12 pucks to get
by him in Boston — had the gall to say he would’ve
stopped the lone shot that eluded Thomas. He later bemoaned the
lack of compliments he’d received from his counterpart,
citing he’d been pumping Thomas’ tires throughout the
matchup.
When the Bruins tied the series with a 5-2 victory at the Garden,
they didn’t just have their burgeoning legion of fans
throughout New England behind them. The entire world desperately
wanted them to defeat the now-villainous Canucks.
Justice, as they say, prevailed.
With two goals apiece from Brad Marchand and Bergeron, the Bruins
defied all odds against their heavily favored opponent, winning
Game 7 on the road by a score of 4-0.
The magnitude of their victory in the Stanley Cup Finals is
immeasurable. No longer are the Bruins an outsider in what has
become a city of champions over the past decade. Years upon years
of playoff futility, disappointment and utter heartache have been
forgotten. Memories of too-many-men-on-the-ice in 1979 against the
Canadiens, of getting bowled over by the Oilers and Penguins, of
Scott Walker in overtime and Simon Gagne capping off the
Flyers’ historic comeback are officially erased.
For once in their lives, the tears a loyal fan base had to wipe
away weren’t of sorrow but of indescribable joy.
“Thank God for the fans,” Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs
said. “Thank God they’re there, I mean, this is their
team. I keep on saying, I’m sort of the custodian at this
point, but it’s their team. Without them, we’re
nothing. And with them, we’re everything. They have stuck
with us. They are the reason we’re here.”
No longer will the Bruins’ legion of devotees be reminded
incessantly about 1972. In 2011, the Bruins went from perennial
chokers to triumphant champs.
And for the fans throughout New England and beyond who stuck it
out through thick and thin waiting for this moment, once chastised
for ever fathoming it might happen, there is a sense of relief
that’s nearly as strong as the overwhelming feeling of
jubilance they experienced watching Boston’s 6-foot-9 captain
hoist hockey’s Holy Grail high above his head.
For now, be it on their hats, T-shirts, bumper stickers and their
black-and-gold jerseys, they can sport that Spoked-B with a greater
sense of pride than they’ve ever felt before.
They, too, are champs.
This article originally appeared in the July 2011 issue of
New England Hockey Journal.
Jesse Connolly can be reached at jconnolly@hockeyjournal.com