That image took a hit in Game 5 in Vancouver. Actually, it took 47 hits. That’s how many hits the Canucks were credited for, compared to just 27 for the Bruins. The Canucks beat the Bruins at their own game by causing havoc with their physical play in a 1-0 victory that pushed Boston to the brink of elimination in the Stanley Cup Final.
“I’m still [mad] about Game 5, and I hope everybody else in here is, too,” Bruins forward Shawn Thornton said after Monday’s morning skate before Game 6 at the Garden. “I don’t think we played the way we need to play. We got away from our game plan for some reason. We haven’t had success all year when we’ve veered from the game plan. To be successful [Monday night] we’re going to have to play our brand of hockey.”
Boston’s brand of hockey is a tough, hard-nosed style of play that emphasizes plenty of contact. The Bruins don’t need to get involved in some of the post-whistle shenanigans that marked much of the early going in the series, but they do need to hit and hit often to force turnovers and slow Vancouver’s speedy forwards.
“When we’re engaged emotionally and physically and we bring and establish that presence early on, that’s when we’re most successful, when we play that high-energy game and with a lot of emotion and all 20 guys are going,” Bruins forward Milan Lucic said. “You look at Game 3 and Game 4, the reason we were successful is because not just one line or five guys or 10 guys were going. We had everybody going, and we’re going to need that [Monday night] to be successful and move on.
“We have to get back to doing more of what we did in Game 3 and Game 4, and that was being physical and winning puck battles and winning battles along the boards and fighting for space in front of the net,” Lucic added. “If we take care of little things and worry about the process and what we need to do, things tend to take care of themselves.”
The Bruins recognize that they were beaten to the punch by Vancouver’s strong forecheck in Friday’s Game 5, and are determined to reverse that Monday.
“I think they were more physical than we were, and that’s certainly something that they did very well in that game,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said. “We know that we have to be better in regards to that if we want to establish our forecheck. We’ve got to match hit for hit if not be better than them. So it’s something that has to happen, not for the sake of trying to run them out of the rink, but for the sake of establishing what we want to establish and creating the things that we want to create.”
And the Bruins can’t afford to waste any time in getting back to that hard-hitting style and setting the tone physically.
“You just get the momentum early and come out and show those guys that they’re in for a game, and that’s what we want to do,” Bruins forward Michael Ryder said. “And once we do that, it seems like we have a lot more success and we get to control the play. [We need to] start that early in the game, get our game going and everything will fall into place from there.”
That won’t be easy, as the Canucks will also be trying to establish their own physical game. They proved in Game 5 that can more than match the Bruins in that department.
“We’re going to focus on our game plan,” Canucks forward Manny Malhotra said. “We knew from Game 1 that was going to be their style. They want to emphasize the physical aspect of it. We’ve shown that we can play that style of game, but more importantly we want to be the aggressors [Monday night]. We want to be the ones forechecking them, having some sustained pressure in the offensive zone and try to establish the momentum that way.”
The Canucks took away Boston’s ability to play its physical game Friday, and the Bruins know they can’t afford to let that happen again if they want to extend the series and have a shot at winning the Cup.
“We didn’t give ourselves a chance to be physical,” Thornton said. “They did a good job of putting pucks in areas where they could finish checks and we didn’t. We turned too many pucks over in the neutral zone. We didn’t play the way we need to play. We weren’t strong enough. We lost battles. We had to be better, and we better be better [Monday night] or else that’s it. Backs are against the wall. Everybody’s got to bring their best game.”
