The 2013 Stanley Cup run of the Boston Bruins finished the same way it started; with one of the most incredible finishes to a sporting event you will ever witness.
Boston was facing a 4-1 deficit to the Toronto Maple Leafs in game seven of the first round of these playoffs with just 11 minutes to play in the third period. Boston would score three goals in the final 11 minutes, including two in the final 90 seconds to tie the game 4-4. Boston would go on to win in overtime and eventually make their way to the Stanley Cup Finals.
It was one of the most poetic moments I’ve seen in my sport-watching lifetime. There would be no game seven.
First and foremost, what a series. I had my fingers crossed for a game seven because I wasn’t ready to see this series end yet. I’m sure the NHL wasn’t either. In a season where owners and players were deciding how rich each other gets to be while withholding NHL hockey from their customers for half a season, the NHL as a brand needed a big-time Finals to recuperate its image a little bit. It doesn’t get much bigger for hockey markets in the United States than Boston and Chicago, among a few others.
As with any Stanley Cup Finals, there are always certain moments that no one forgets. Some are huge, like this overtime game winner. Some are funny, like these repeat-a-jabs to Daniel Sedin’s face. Whatever they are to the individual, that’s what people remember most about any playoffs. No one remembers the CorsiFor% in game one (it was 62.8% in Chicago’s favor, by the way). No one remembers the special team battle (of which there wasn’t much of one). But there are moments or storylines, warranted or not, that get remembered through the annals of time.
There were three moments/storylines/points of these Finals that stuck out to me, in no particular order.
#1 – Game Three
The only game that Boston really dominated throughout was game three in Boston, which they took 2-0 on the back of a 28-save shutout from Tuukka Rask.
This game sticks out in my mind first and foremost because it gave us an insight into just how much Chicago relied on their offensive superstars. Not necessarily for goal-scoring – Jonathan Toews and Marian Hossa combined for 30 points in 45 playoff games – but for controlling the offense of the opposition.
Marian Hossa missed this game with what we would eventually find out to be a problem with a disc in his back that was causing numbness in his legs. He was a shell of himself after returning in game four in order to finish out the series, especially in game six when he was a -6 Corsi and every time he got the puck all he could really do was dump it in or fire it on net.
But we got a glimpse into what life would be like if Chicago was missing one of their Big Four forwards – Toews, Hossa, Patrick Kane and Patrick Sharp – because of the imbalance it created in their lines. It did, however, lead to a reunion of Toews and Kane on the same line and, well, we see how that worked out.
Lest we forget, this amazing pass from Jaromir Jagr.
#2 – Corey Crawford’s Glove Hand
If nothing else, it was one of the most amazing streaks I have ever seen in hockey.
In Boston’s first two losses in this series, games one and four when they scored eight goals, they scored every single one of their goals to Corey Crawford’s glove hand.
Admittedly, it doesn’t really mean a whole lot. Sometimes, like on this Rich Peverley goal, it looked like Crawford was trying to snap out his hand to snatch the puck instead of moving his hand into the path of the puck. But you don’t get to the Stanley Cup Finals as a goaltender unless you can catch a puck. This can get teams into bad habits. You need only ask Boston defenseman Dougie Hamilton, who was part of the 2013 Team Canada World Junior squad. In their semi-final match-up with the United States, there was a perceived “hole” in USA goaltender John Gibson’s glove hand. In what seemed like 30 missed glove-side shots later, Canada lost the game handily.
When you focus too much on a perceived weakness, it can dominate your instincts. With Boston on the power-play in the second period of game six, less than a minute after Chicago tied the game 1-1, rookie Bruins defenseman Torey Krug was set-up for a one-timer in the slot (between and at the top of the face-off circles) and he let loose a high-and-wide slapshot, aiming for the glove side. The puck rimmed around and was kept in by the Bruins, but it was a glorious chance wasted by focusing on a weakness instead of ripping a slapshot that the goalie can’t save anyway unless it hits him directly.
#3 – Patrick Kane as Conn Smythe Winner
In one of those “whatever” moments, Patrick Kane was named the Conn Smythe winner as the MVP of the playoffs.
Now, if you’re going to just give it to a player on the winning team, Kane isn’t a bad choice. He led the Blackhawks in playoff scoring, just about single-handedly won them the series-clinching game five of the Conference Finals against Los Angeles when he potted a hat-trick and he scored a pair of goals in game five of this series—including the game-winning goal. A special mention should probably go to Crawford, too, because other than a few games in the Detroit series, he was good all through the playoffs. However, I don’t think the seventh-best goalie in playoff SV% (min. 10 games) is very worthy of the Conn Smythe.
There is a history of giving the Conn Smythe to a player on the losing team. In fact, it’s happened five times since the trophy was introduced in the mid-60s and of those five times, it went to four goaltenders.
Last year, when Jonathan Quick won the Conn Smythe in Los Angeles’ Cup run, he finished the playoffs with a .946 SV%. When Jean-Sébastien Giguere won the Conn Smythe on the losing Anaheim Mighty Ducks team in 2003, he also finished with a .946 SV%. By the time the final whistle blew in game six of these playoffs, Boston goalie Tuukka Rask finished the playoffs with a .945 SV%.
Rask had an unbelievable playoff run; he went through the second and third rounds of the playoffs allowing more than two goals once, a game four loss to the New York Rangers by a 4-3 score. In 22 playoff games, Rask allowed eight power-play goals. Yes, a big credit goes to the Bruins penalty kill and especially Zdeno Chara. However, Rask went from allowing nearly a PP goal every two games in the regular season to allowing a PP goal nearly every three games in the playoffs. Also, let’s not forget that he held the highest scoring team in the regular season, Pittsburgh (who was also averaging over four goals a game going into the Boston series), to just two goals in a four-game sweep.
When there is no clear-cut winner off the winning team (you could even make a case for Bryan Bickell), the PHWA writers who vote —three from each team and five at-large votes—shouldn’t hesitate to give it to the one player who was clearly the best playoff performer this year.
Undoubtedly, what will be remembered most clearly by just about everyone that watched these games was the final 90 seconds of game six. It’s a moment we as sport’s fans live for. Those last 90 seconds of this Stanley Cup Finals, game seven against Toronto, game 162 of the MLB regular season in 2011, the scramble from Eli Manning to snatch his first Super Bowl win in 2007. Those are the moments that keep fans coming back.
However, let’s not try to reduce this series to 90 seconds. It was six games of amazing hockey that even kept people with no horse in the race glued to their television sets.
Congratulations, Chicago. From wire to wire, you were the best team in the NHL and it showed.
Is it time for training camps yet?
