"There's a lot of similarities," Chiarelli said during a news conference Saturday at the Garden to discuss the upcoming Cup Final between the Bruins and Canucks. "I think they're more of a puck-possession team than us. Obviously their special teams are better. Their power play is better and they throw it around pretty good.
"But I think we match up size-wise, like you saw in the game last night, as the game went on, and I could feel this too, as the game went on, you got the sense that you are going to wear them down and something good was going to happen if you just kept kind of the same process, the same system, the same approach. Pucks deep, get behind the D. And I think the same can apply to these guys. So that's, without giving away completely our game plan, that's how I see us matching up."
The Bruins and Canucks matched up just once in the regular season this year, with the Bruins taking a 3-1 win in Vancouver on Feb. 26. One regular-season meeting more than three months ago doesn't necessarily mean a lot when you get this far into the postseason, but it does at least give the Bruins a little boost of confidence against a club that won the Presidents' Trophy with the league's best record in the regular season.
"The game that we played against them was one of the best games that we've played throughout the year," Chiarelli said. "For them, I think they were in a bit of a funk. I had seen them the game before up there and it's all relative. Their funk is a top 25 percent team, a top quartile team."
The Canucks certainly don't lack any firepower, with star twins Daniel and Henrik Sedin leading the way. Henrik Sedin leads the league in playoff scoring with 2-19-21 totals, after Daniel led the NHL in the regular season at 41-63-104. But Chiarelli is confident his defense, led by Zdeno Chara and Dennis Seidenberg, can contain the Sedins at least somewhat.
"Obviously they've got the Sedins," Chiarelli said. "They've played a lot below the goal line, and I think we match up well in that sense because we're strong defensively. We've got some big bodies on defense. And we cover well below the goal line. Now they're magical sometimes those guys, so they're always dangerous."
The Canucks are also strong on the blue line themselves, though Vancouver is battling some injuries there.
"Their D is strong," Chiarelli said. "I don't know who they're getting back. I know [Christian] Ehrhoff has been hurt. And the last pair was, I think it was [Christopher] Tanev and [Keith] Ballard, their 5-6 pair. But historically throughout the year, their D has been the strength of their team. From the puck-moving perspective, you’ve got the [Alexander] Edlers, the [Kevin] Bieksas, the [Sami] Salos. They can all move the puck and shoot the puck.
"And of course Ryan Kesler has had a terrific playoffs," Chiarelli added of Vancouver's top two-way forward. "He is a similar player to Patrice [Bergeron]. So there's a lot of similarities."
Both teams will also have to deal with a similarly tough travel schedule as they jet back and forth across North America for the series, which opens Wednesday in Vancouver. The Canucks will host Game 2 as well, but not until next Saturday before the series shifts to Boston for Games 3 and 4 the following Monday and Wednesday. If needed, the 2-2-1-1-1 format will keep the clubs going back and forth across the continent, with Games 5 and 7 in Vancouver and Game 6 in Boston.
"I guess the two-day break between Games 1 and 2, why couldn't it have been between 2 and 3, right?" Chiarelli said. "And the building schedules and whatnot, so the travel is going to be the biggest thing. But the five o'clock starts, eight o'clock Eastern Time, will help us in that regard too.
"We’re relatively healthy," Chiarelli added. "To keep the guys sharp between now and the start of the series, I don't think that's going to be too hard. We're going to be back on the ice [Sunday]. We're going to take off on Monday. So the challenge is travel. And we just came off probably the most travel that we're going to have in the Eastern Conference against Tampa in seven games. We stayed over [in Tampa after Game 6]. … So we were already thinking about rest and recovery and all that."
