On Wednesday night, the Bruins lost because the Canucks won the game of adjustments.
For much of the first two periods, the B's carried the play. They outshot the Canucks 26-20 heading into the second intermission. Their usual power-play frustration notwithstanding, they peppered Roberto Luongo for the first 40 minutes, getting quality chances and looking for rebound opportunities against the butterfly-style goalie.
They just couldn't beat him.
On the other end, Tim Thomas was his usual self. He didn't quite match Luongo save-for-save through the first two periods, but that was only because he didn't see as many shots. As always, he was there to make saves when Boston needed him most. None were bigger than the stop on Ryan Kesler's breakaway bid in the first.
It was a harbinger of things to come. In the third period, Vancouver came to life. Having not played in eight days, the Canucks shook off the rust and came after Thomas with their guns blazing. He stopped 13 shots in the period, not including an Alexander Edler bid that hit the post and 19 shots that were blocked by Bruins players.
Thomas made save after save. He made the best save of the game, stopping Jannik Hansen on a clean breakaway, and flashed some glove to take one away from Maxim Lapierre. The best goalie in the NHL this season was at his best with the game on the line.
Then, Kesler made the play of the game. You can argue that he was offside, but he managed to avoid the charging freight train that was Johnny Boychuk with some 20 seconds to go. He got a pass off to Hansen, who found a wide-open Raffi Torres for the game's only goal. Boychuk, who can be a bit of a loose cannon on the blue line, led all players with eight hits on the night. But he missed Kesler on that particular play, and he went on to set up the game winner.
"I'm not a play-by-play announcer," Thomas told reporters after the game. "There was a turnover, they were able to keep it in at the blue line and the guy with the puck was able to get in a spot where I was starting to cut down the angle."
In other words, Thomas was coming out to challenge Hansen. He had to because no one else was. Boychuk was trying to get back down low after the turnover, and with the Bruins' defensive positioning gone, Thomas was trying to do it alone — something he had essentially done for the entire third period.
"I thought for the first two periods, we played a pretty even game, but obviously in the third we just seemed to lack some energy," said Claude Julien afterward. "We lost our legs, and they just seemed to come at us pretty hard and kind of took the game over."
And that is why the Canucks, and not the Bruins, are now three wins away from hoisting the Cup. You've probably heard by now that teams that win the first game of the Finals have a 71 percent track record of winning the series. In the last 25 years, only one team (Pittsburgh in 2009) has come back from a first-game loss to win the Cup.
So, it's up to the Bruins now to make the adjustments. The Canucks may have taken Game 1 over in the third period, but the B's can still take control of this series. A road win Saturday would be a good place to start. And a power-play goal would be a good step toward doing it.
After all, Tim Thomas can't do it all by himself. Even though he came close on Wednesday night.
