A Look at the 2010-11 Boston Bruins

The early 2000s saw a sports uprising in the town of Boston, beginning with the New England Patriots winning Super Bowl XXXVI. They added two more Super Bowl wins later on, and in baseball, the Boston Red Sox won their first World Series in 86 years, and won another championship three years later in 2007. The Boston Celtics won the NBA Championship in 2008, but regarding hockey, the Boston Bruins had to wait a bit to join the Boston Ring Party--as if they hadn't been waiting long enough as it is.

Despite being one of the Original Six franchises, the Bruins had a long Cup drought, with their last victory taking place in 1972. Since then, Boston had reached the Cup Final five times, with their 1990 loss to the post-Gretzky Edmonton Oilers being their last appearance. They reached the then-named Wales Conference Final in 1991 and 1992, but would go many years without a Final Four appearance. The Bruins appeared to be a perennial playoff team entering the 2010s, but the 2010 playoffs featured what had to be the worst moment for the Bruins. That year's Eastern Conference Semifinals between the Bruins and the Philadelphia Flyers saw the Bruins win the first three games of the series--only to lose the next four, becoming the third team to be "reverse swept" in NHL history. The Flyers went all the way to the Cup Final that year.

In the NHL, when a team gets hit in the mouth like that, they usually answer back big time. In the case of the Boston Bruins, they went 46-25-11 and finished with 103 points, winning the Northeast Division and finishing third in the Eastern Conference. The Bruins' roster didn't have a lot of high point totals; 62 led the team, with David Krejci and Milan Lucic sharing that top honor. Regarding Lucic, 30 of his 62 points were goals, giving him the team lead. Close behind Lucic and Krejci in points was Patrice Bergeron with 57 (22 G/35 A), while his current longtime partner-in-offense, Brad Marchand, had only 41 points, but 21 of them were goals. Their main goaltender was Tim Thomas, who went 35-11-9 with a 2.00 GAA, a .938 SV%, and nine shutouts. The backup that year is a name we are all familiar with: Tuukka Rask, who went 11-14-2 with a 2.67 GAA, a .918 SV%, and two shutouts.

The Bruins faced their longtime foes, the Montréal Canadiens, in the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals, needing all seven games to advance. With all three of the East's division winners all winning and advancing, this set up an Eastern Conference Semifinal series between the Boston Bruins and the Philadelphia Flyers, with the horrible memories of their last encounter remaining fresh in their minds. Similar to 2010, the Bruins won the first three games, but this time, they took no chances--winning Game Four by a score of 5-1 to reached the Eastern Conference Final for the first time in 19 years. The Bruins faced off against the Tampa Bay Lightning, and they again needed seven games, with Nathan Horton's goal being all the Bruins needed to reach the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in 21 years.

I remember the 2011 Stanley Cup Final very well. The Bruins faced off against the Vancouver Canucks, and I'll be brutally honest; back then, I hated the Canucks with a passion. I'm a Colorado Avalanche fan, and at that time, I was still angry over the Steve Moore incident and the lack of punishment that went to Todd Bertuzzi. I was not happy that the Canucks were actually in the Stanley Cup Final in 2011, and I was cheering loudly for the Bruins to beat them that year. However, the first two games in Vancouver did not end well for the Bruins--a 1-0 loss in Game One thanks to a late Raffi Torres goal, and a 3-2 overtime loss, with Alex Burrows scoring just eleven seconds into the extra frame. So the Bruins returned to Boston down 2-0 in the Final, and they responded with home wins in Games Three and Four, outscoring the Canucks by a combined score of 12-1. It was all knotted up at two games each heading back to Vancouver, but the Bruins would lose 1-0 for the second time in the series.

The Bruins returned home needing to win out, and Game Six saw an offensive explosion: four goals in the first period, en route to a 5-2 win. So far, the home team won all six games in this series, but Boston needed to break that trend if they wanted to be the last team standing. Boy, did they! No Vancouver shot got past Tim Thomas, while the Bruins scored one in the first, two in the second, and an empty netter in the third to seal it. The Bruins won 4-0, and for the first time in 39 years, they were Stanley Cup Champions.

Tim Thomas took home the Conn Smythe Trophy that year, as he went 16-9 with a 1.98 GAA and a .940 SV%. Thomas also had four shutouts in the 2011 playoffs, with two of them taking place in the Final, including the pivotal Game Seven in Vancouver. In addition, Thomas became the first American-born player to win the Conn Smythe Trophy since Brian Leetch earned the nod back in 1994. Regarding the skaters, David Krejci led the team in points (23) and goals (12) during Boston's playoff run. Patrice Bergeron had 20 points, but while only six of them were goals, two of the goals were scored in Game Seven. Brad Marchand scored 11 goals in the 2011 playoffs, with four of them coming in the Cup Final, including two in Game Seven.

I was very happy that the Bruins won, because I didn't want the Canucks to win a thing. This was Boston's sixth and (to date) most recent Stanley Cup; they would return to the Cup Final in 2013 and 2019, coming up short both times. 2011 was the last Final to feature a Canadian team until the Canadiens reached the Final in 2021, and it remains the Canucks' most recent appearance in the Cup Final--they haven't advanced past the Elite Eight since then. At the moment, only Marchand, Bergeron, and the returning Krejci remain from that 2011 championship team (Lucic and Seguin are with different teams). This was an amazing run from the Bruins, and it came a year removed from their embarrassing reverse sweep loss. It just proves that nothing truly cures all ills and bad omens more than a Stanley Cup.