BT's 2011 Stanley Cup Preview

The question of who will battle for the Stanley Cup has now been answered. The Vancouver Canucks will face the Boston Bruins. Now we ask, who will hoist the Holy Grail of Hockey.

Will it be the Eastern Conference or the Western Conference?

Will it be the grizzled veteran who’s bounced around from team-to-team, come close but never close enough, and simply needs that championship to sign off on his career, placing his hands on the finest mug in the world?

What about the young kid who stepped up and led an equally young team through all kinds of adversity when nobody else thought they could?

Or maybe that goalie, who’s been seen as a weak link on so many teams, steps up and has the biggest series of his life and changes the perception of himself forever.

Once the debates over who is going to win the series and whether the Cup goes back to Canada for the first time since the early 90’ or it returns to one of the Original Six cities finishes up, there’s another debate that people like to start. Who gets the cup after the team captain?

Throughout the history of the Stanley Cup, the Captain has been the first to lift it, and then he’s passed it off to the next-most valuable player following that. Sometimes however, the personal side of things takes over.

In 2007 Scott Niedermayer passed the cup off to his long-suffering brother, who had fought so valiantly for the trophy during his career. The following year, Nick Lidstrom went straight to Dallas Drake with it, the NHL veteran of 16 seasons who had sat back and watched time after time. Perhaps the most famous of all though, is Joe Sakic. The man called Burnaby Joe and the leader of the Colorado Avalanche didn’t even hoist the Cup in 2001. He accepted it from Gary Bettman, turned to his right, and placed it straight in the hands of Ray Bourque—the reason anyone who wasn’t a New Jersey Devils fan was pulling for the Avalanche.

So it brings about the question: Who, if anyone, is the leading candidate on either side to be passed the Cup when it’s handed out?

The biggest head-scratcher comes from Vancouver. On any other team, whether he played in the finals or not, the cup would be handed off to Manny Malhotra because of what he meant to the team while he was in the lineup, and everything he’s had to go through in recovering from his eye injury. But then there’s the matter of your captain having a TWIN BROTHER. Does Henrik give it to Daniel? Does he bypass Daniel and go straight to Manny? Or do the Sedins just wear championship t-shirts shrouding their numbers and go up to Bettman together, confusing him (and everyone except their parents) and hoist it together without anyone knowing who’s who, and then passing it off to Malhotra?

If the Malhotra incident had never happened, odds are that Ryan Kesler or Roberto Luongo would’ve ended up with the Cup after the Sedins had paraded it around, based on everything Kesler’s been through in Vancouver and all that Luongo has had to put up with from both the Canucks and Panthers.

But what if Zdeno Chara lifts the cup? Then what? It could be given to Mark Recchi next, but Recchi has two cups to his credit, with the last one coming in 2005-06 with Carolina. After that, there’s really no “elder statesman” with the Bruins. Tomas Kaberle has been the subject of plenty of malice since the Bruins acquired him, but is it really enough for him to have the second touch? Nathan Horton was an abandoned NHL commodity in Florida before the Bruins saved him, and no one was been bigger for them these playoffs, but will Chara turn and give the cup to Horton?

Unfortunately for those two, this may also come down to a two horse race. In one lane you have Tim Thomas, the man who’s taken an eraser to every goalie technique book ever written and left goalie instructors banging their heads off the boards as kids say “I want to be like Thomas” and slide around the ice. Thomas is the owner of a career that almost never got off the ground and has earned everything he’s received.

Then there’s Marc Savard, who may never play the sport again thanks to his mounting head trauma. Savard hasn’t played since suffering another concussion in February, and is faced with a scary future depending on how he recovers from this latest one. He gave the Bruins the four best years of his career, and lifting the Cup might make the future a little easier to bear if he’s forced to let his career slip from reach.

First or second, tenth or last, the players are playing for that opportunity to touch the Cup and lift it above their heads. One team will be so lucky. The other will be left to try again next year and hope for the best.

1. Vancouver Canucks vs. 7 Boston Bruins (LEAGUE RANKING)

What Vancouver has going for them: Even considering their first-round scare against the Blackhawks, the Canucks have had the easier road to the finals, and outside of the injuries to Aaron Rome and Christian Ehrhoff, they’ve been healthy this entire run. They own two of the top-five (Henrik Sedin and Ryan Kesler) scorers in these playoffs and three (Daniel Sedin) of the top-ten. They have a better power play (by a lot) and a better penalty kill (by a little) than Boston, and they scored more (20 goals) in fewer games (5 games) against San Jose than in any other series (16 in seven games against Chicago and 14 in six games against Nashville).


What Boston has going for them: While both teams have had a layoff, Vancouver’s is longer so you’d assume there would be more rust. The Bruins also got things back in order and played their game in game seven with that 1-0 win, rather than the mad scramble that their Eastern Conference Final against Tampa Bay turned out to be. Nathan Horton has been one of the best when it’s all on the line this spring, and the Bruins have the ability and the bodies to grind it out with the Canucks.

Who wins: Some people see this series as going the distance and being a great one, while others believe (or at least want to) that Vancouver will wrap it up pretty handily early on. While I agree that Vancouver may have enough of an edge to get the victory, let’s face it…the longer the series, the better.

Vancouver wins 4-3.

What Boston needs to prove me wrong: Simply put? Tim Thomas needs to be Tim Thomas; the Mad Libs of goalies. He has the ability to frustrate those Canuck scorers, and he’s tough enough to deal with them himself if they get in his kitchen. Speaking of Kitchens, it’d also help if the Bruins got in Roberto Luongo’s early and often, and figuring out that power play certainly wouldn’t hurt.