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There’s nothing like playoff hockey, and there’s really nothing like a Game 7, especially when the winner is going to end up lifting the Stanley Cup after playing over 100 games on the season. The Vancouver Canucks are going to try to hoist their first Cup in team history, but not if the Boston Bruins have anything to say about it on Wednesday night.

Stanley Cup Playoffs Game 7 Preview: Boston Bruins @ Vancouver Canucks
Date: Wednesday, June 15th, 8:00 ET
Location: Rogers Arena, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Game Line: Vancouver -145
Over/Under 5

Boston knows that it hasn’t gotten any offense going in this series in three games up in Vancouver, but it hopes that the momentum that it has gotten from these three games in Beantown can help get it over the hump in this most pivotal of games. The Bruins in fact, only have two goals in the Great White North in this series, both of which came within three minutes of one another in Game 2. Milan Lucic and Mark Recchi were the ones that did the deed. Instead, we really have to focus in on the play of Tim Thomas in net. It’s not often that we are confident that a player on a losing team is going to end up winning the MVP award for the postseason, but we know that Thomas is going to have some sort of hardware barring someone coming up with a truly remarkable performance in Game 7 for Vancouver. The 37 year old net minder has had a great story through his career. He has had surgeries, procedures, and other medical problems that have not only threatened his playing career, but his life as well, and he came into this season facing the prospects of being the backup goaltender for a second straight year to Tuukka Rask. Instead, Thomas won the starting job, set the record for the best save percentage in a season at .938, and has played every single minute of the playoffs. He’s sure to win the Vezina Trophy as the league’s top net minder, and the truth of the matter is that regardless of which way Game 7 goes, he should be the Conn Smythe Award winner to boot. Thomas has allowed just eight goals in this series, which is saying something considering the fact that Vancouver had the best offensive team in the league this year.

History just doesn’t feel like it is on the side of the Canucks in this series. In fact, it never really seems to matter who Vancouver is running up against, it always feels like it is coming so close, yet is so far away. The Canucks have only gotten this close to the Stanley Cup one time in team history, and as quickly as they reached the three win plateau in 1994 in the Finals against the New York Rangers, a 3-2 loss at Madison Square Garden took it all away and left the team without a championship. This is the first time since that point in which Vancouver had even made it to the Western Conference Finals, let alone to the Stanley Cup Finals. We know that there are some obvious problems that need to be worked out for Vancouver to win this game. The first is in net. We know that Roberto Luongo has had all sorts of great play here at Rogers Arena over the course of the last two seasons. He won a gold medal here for a great performance in a 2-1 win over the United States for Team Canada in the Winter Olympics, and now, he has a .979 save percentage, including two shutouts in three games here in the Stanley Cup Finals this year. Of course, at the TD Garden, he stopped less than 80 percent of his shots and was run out of two of the three games, allowing 15 goals in that time frame. However, it would really help if his offense were to show up just a bit. The Canucks only have eight goals scored in this series, one of which came from Henrik Sedin in Game 6 after things were already out of hand, and one of which came from Daniel Sedin in that devastatingly bad 8-1 loss in Beantown. Ryan Kesler only has one assist for the series and no goals after scoring 41 in the regular season.

We just don’t know if the Canucks really have the goods in them to be able to wrap up the Stanley Cup. The whole city of Vancouver and the entire country of Canada is resting on this one game, and there is a tremendous difference between winning and losing. Unfortunately for Vancouver, Luongo and company just don’t look like the better side in this matchup even though they had the best team in the league all season long. There’s just nowhere else that we can go with our Game 7 Stanley Cup Predictions than to take the Boston Bruins +125.

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Stanley Cup Finals Matchup: #1 Vancouver Canucks vs. #3 Boston Bruins
Stanley Cup Finals Dates: June 1st – June 15th
Vancouver Canucks Stanley Cup Odds: -200 @ SportBet Sportsbook
Boston Bruins Stanley Cup Odds: +175 @ SportBet Sportsbook

The Canucks and Bruins both seem like they have had some rich histories in their time. Unfortunately for both teams though, it has been quite awhile since Lord Stanley has paid a visit. Even though Vancouver has the famous Stanley Park just minutes away from Rogers Arena, the team has never actually hoisted the Stanley Cup. This is only the third time in team history in which the Canucks have been to the Stanley Cup Finals. For the Bruins, they do have their share of Cups, but they are also deficient of a championship since 1972.

The battle in goal between these two red hot goaltenders is going to be one for the ages, as it truly is one of the best contests between goaltenders that we have seen in quite some time in this league. Roberto Luongo has definitely had his share of challenges in the postseason. He was benched in Game 4 and in Game 5 of the Western Conference Quarterfinals against the Chicago Blackhawks, and he ended up not starting Game 6. Since that point though, he has been absolutely on fire, accounting for eight game with two or fewer goals allowed. The man that is going to be on the other side of the ice is also playing in his first Stanley Cup Finals of his career. Tim Thomas is likely going to win the Vezina Trophy this year, as he broke the NHL record for best save percentage in a season at .938.Thomas shut out the Tampa Bay Lightning twice in the Eastern Conference Finals, including in a nervy 1-0 Game 7 win on Wednesday night.

Offensively, it is clear which team is going to be strong. However, we perhaps shouldn’t be all that surprised, as the Bruins were not the better offensive club either in the second round of the postseason against the Philadelphia Flyers, or in the Eastern Conference Finals against the Lightning. Still, they were able to get the job done in spite of the fact that the phenomenal offensive performances were few and far between. Boston did get a hat trick out of David Krejci in a Game 6 loss against the Lightning. He is tied with Nathan Horton for the team lead in points with 17. There are only four more players with at least double digits in points, and surprisingly, Milan Lucic isn’t one of them, nor is Zdeno Chara. Boston only has five goals on the power play in the entire postseason, which is shockingly bad. Maybe we shouldn’t be so surprised, though. After all, the Bruins did rank No. 21 in the league in the regular season with the man advantage.

Meanwhile, the Canucks have absolutely been dominating the postseason thanks to their power play. Daniel Sedin has five of his eight goals on the man advantage in these playoffs, while Ryan Kesler already has four of his seven goals in the playoffs on the power play. Sami Salo has three power play goals as well, and as a whole, the team has 17 strikes with the man advantage. Henrik Sedin is always a man to keep an eye on because of his cohesion with the rest of his line mates, particularly his brother, Daniel. Henrik though, leads the league in assists in the playoffs with 19, and he is going to probably be the top point scorer in the playoffs when it’s all said and done since he has 21 points now, and no one on either his own team, nor the Bruins is likely to catch him.

In the end, especially knowing that the Canucks have home ice advantage, we have to back the Western Conference champs and the President’s Trophy holders. Sure, Vancouver doesn’t have much of a playoff history, and sure, it hasn’t been to this juncture of the playoffs since 1994, but we know that this is a team that has overcome just about everything else this year. This is the destiny for the Canucks.
NHL Playoffs Picks: Vancouver Canucks in 5 (-200 @ SportBet Sportsbook)