The 2011 Stanley Cup Victory

Lore & Background

The Canucks had home ice advantage in the Final by winning the Presidents' Trophy as the team that finished with the best regular season record (117 points). They were also the first Canadian team to have home ice advantage in the Final since the Montreal Canadiens had it in 1993. The Canucks were also the last Canadian team to reach the Finals until 2021. It was the furthest distance between two cities in NHL history for the Finals, at 4,023 kilometres (2,500 miles), until 2024 and 2025 as both were between the Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers. On June 1, 2011, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman made an announcement that Colin Campbell would be stepping down as the league's head disciplinarian to be replaced by former player Brendan Shanahan, though Campbell would continue in his job as director of hockey operations. Mike Murphy, the NHL vice-president of hockey operations, had already been put in charge of disciplinary matters for the Finals, nonetheless there were concerns raised about Campbell's impartiality in handing out discipline since his son, Gregory, was an active player on the Bruins. The series began on June 1 and ended on June 15. The games varied widely between those played in Vancouver and those in Boston. Prior to game seven, the Bruins scored two goals in three games played in Vancouver (games one, two, and five), against 17 scored in three games at Boston (games three, four, and six). On the other hand, while he posted two 1–0 shutouts in Vancouver (games one and five), Canucks goaltender Roberto Luongo was replaced with the backup Cory Schneider twice in three games (games four and six) in Boston. The Bruins scored almost three times the number of total goals as the Canucks, (23–8 in the series), and scored as many goals in a single game (game three) as the Canucks did during the entire series, but the Canucks still won three games (games one, two, and five, respectively). The eight goals scored by Vancouver is the lowest number of goals scored by any team in a full seven-game series in NHL history. It was the fourth consecutive Stanley Cup Final in which the road team won the Stanley Cup. The Final marked the first time that two francophone Canadian head coaches, Claude Julien of Boston and Alain Vigneault of Vancouver had coached the opposing finalists. Both coaches also had nearly identical backgrounds. Both had grown up near Ottawa, bo

In Their Own Story

The ice in TD Garden was scarred from thirty-nine minutes of intense skating. Tim Thomas stood motionless for a second after the final horn, his stick gripped tight against the boards. The roar of the crowd washed over him, a physical weight that lifted the exhaustion from his shoulders. Zdeno Chara skated toward him, extending a gloved hand. They did not need to speak; the trophy waiting in the locker room said everything.

Reader's Guide

The Bruins finished the regular season as the Northeast Division champion with 103 points, earning the third seed in the Eastern Conference. In their 33rd postseason meeting, Boston eliminated their bitter rivals, the sixth-seeded Montreal Canadiens, in the first round of the playoffs in seven games. The Bruins went on to sweep the second-seeded Philadelphia Flyers in the second round, outscoring the Flyers 20–7 in the four games. Later, in the Eastern Conference Finals, Boston defeated the fifth-seeded Tampa Bay Lightning in seven games. This was the eighteenth appearance in the Stanley Cup Final for the Bruins, and their first since 1990, which they lost in five games to the Edmonton Oilers. It also allowed Boston to join New York City and Philadelphia as being the only cities to have all their teams play in each of the four major North American professional sports leagues' title rounds since 2000, following the Patriots in Super Bowls XXXVI in 2002, XXXVIII in 2004, XXXIX in 2005, and XLII in 2008. The Red Sox winning World Series titles in 2004, 2007, and the Celtics in the NBA Finals in 2008 and 2010 and winning in 2008. The Bruins won their sixth Cup championship, and their first one since defeating the New York Rangers in 1972 in six games, which made Boston the first city to have championships in each of the four leagues in the new millennium. The Canucks, in their 41st season, finished the regular season with the best record at 117 points, winning their first Presidents' Trophy in team history. In the first round of the playoffs, the Canucks met the Chicago Blackhawks for the third consecutive postseason, losing both previous series in six games in the second round. After Vancouver won the first three games, the eighth-seeded and defending Stanley Cup champion Blackhawks won the next three to force a seventh game. Vancouver won the seventh game in overtime on a goal by Alex Burrows to avoid becoming the fourth team in NHL history to lose a series after taking a 3–0 series lead. The Canucks then eliminated the fifth-seeded Nashville Predators in six games during the conference semifinals, with each game in that series decided by just a single goal (with the exception of an empty net goal scored by Vancouver in Game 4). Vancouver then went on to defeat the second-seeded San Jose Sharks in the Western Conference Finals in five games, winning the fifth

Did You Know?

• Center Patrice Bergeron became the twenty-fifth player to enter the "Triple Gold Club", consisting of individuals who have won the Stanley Cup along with gold medals at the Winter Olympics, and World Championships, as a
• Raffi Torres's goal with 18.5 seconds left in regulation broke a scoreless tie to give the Canucks the victory in Game one. The entire game was seen as a duel between the two opposing goaltenders; both Vancouver's Robert