Another Day In Paradise: Canucks & Bruins – Game Five

> Everything You Got: In what’s now a best of three, the basic stats are starting to skew badly against the Canucks. If they’re going to shake off the last two losses and make a strong decision on home ice, they’ll need to start up front. Using the line changes AV has to get the Sedins away from Chara/Seidenberg and hope Julien feels like splitting his top duo as the game progress into the final twenty minutes. Kesler’s line has gone silent and needs to make a statement. Vancouver’s overall offensive game needs to make Thomas work for his saves: eight scoring chances on 38 shots proves Boston is giving them nothing near the high percentage areas. Whether AV takes a page from Tampa’s playbook or stays the course will be an interesting subplot. Tonight would be an ideal time for the PP to find itself. On the backend, it’s a mess they’ll have to deal with. Losing Hamhuis can’t be overstated and the Bruins are punishing Bieksa as often as possible. Ehrhoff and Edler are picking a poor time to play some of their worst hockey all year. Ballard can’t be blamed for his mental lapses after such a long break, but the unit has to come together in front of Luongo and clear the garbage in front. As for the netminder, as AV said in the presser yesterday, "he’s our guy." Luongo claimed to have taken a long walk on the seawall prior to game seven in first round. I trust he got that out of the way already.

> The Big Mo’: Boston has every reason to feel confident they can close this out in two games. First and foremost you can’t win if you can’t score and Thomas is showing the world just how dominant a player he is. Granted Vancouver hasn’t challenged him much in 120 minutes, but he’s still shut the door on breakaways and on special teams. In front of him the team has responded well without Horton, seamlessly inserting Peverley who picked up two goals (and the game winner) in game four. Role players like Marchand are doing what Burrows and Lapierre suddenly can’t: score and agitate the hell out of the opposition. The Bruins have a collective hunger that puts them deservingly in the lead for the Cup, but they’ll have to do it now on the road where they don’t have the benefit of last change, where they are scored on more and give up more PPGs.

> Impress Your Friends With Knowledge!: With game four going to Boston, the home teams in the Cup Final have improved to 15-2 since 2009.