VANCOUVER, B.C. — The past two weeks are likely to be a vivid blur in the memories of Tim Thomas, Roberto Luongo and the players who staggered off their final cross-continent flights Tuesday to put a merciful end to the Stanley Cup Finals.
The Vancouver Canucks have traded home victories of increasing intensity with the Boston Bruins for six games, with their veteran goalies dueling before a backdrop of bites, taunts, dangerous injuries and gut-wrenching road losses. The Presidents’ Trophy-winning Canucks and the profoundly resilient Bruins will play their 107th and final game when their draining seasons end tonight in Game 7.
Both teams are ready to enjoy their drastically shortened summers, but nobody can bear the thought of coming this far without drinking from the Stanley Cup.
“Everything in the past is in the past,” Vancouver center Ryan Kesler said. “If we win (tonight), we become legends.”
Although they’ve lost three of their last four to the surging Bruins, the Canucks are ready to reap their reward for grinding out the NHL’s best regular-season record. They get to play Game 7 at home — and home-ice advantage means more than anybody expected in a series that’s otherwise been utterly unpredictable.
The home team has won every game to date, but Boston has done it better than the favored Canucks. While the Bruins blew out Vancouver by a combined 17-3, the Canucks eked out three one-goal victories.
The Canucks can win their first NHL title after flopping in their first attempt Monday in Boston, while the Bruins are closing strong in their attempt to end a 39-year Stanley Cup drought.
“When we’re in the garage or driveway playing as a kid and you’re fantasizing . . . you’re saying to yourself, ‘Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals,’ ” said Thomas, the likely Conn Smythe Trophy winner after allowing just eight Vancouver goals in six games. “You’re not saying Game 6, you know?”
Both teams could draw emotion from injured players if they choose.
Boston rallied around forward Nathan Horton after his season-ending concussion in Game 3, while the Canucks will play Game 7 without top defenseman Dan Hamhuis, lost in Game 1 to an undisclosed injury, and forward Mason Raymond, who broke a bone in his back on a hit by Boston’s Johnny Boychuk early in Game 6.
