Boston Bruins Vs The 2013 Stanley Cup Champions

And then there were 2...

Fuck me. Of all the teams that may make my Stanley Cup prediction fail, it would be the Boston Bruins. I never really considered them to make it this far at the start. No real reason, maybe just fell onto that Pittsburgh Penguin train of thought or didn't bother considering them because well...Blackhawks.

Toews didn't realize the taxi driver was a Bruins fan.

However, this could very well be one of the most even match-ups in recent history. Now some of you may disagree with me which is fine because I can't hear you.  But the Vancouver/Boston series was a contest between high-class and low-classs; of east coast and west coast, Starbucks vs Dunkin' Donuts, finger biting vs. face punching.
It was ironic that the most effective Canucks (in my opinion) were closest to the Bruins in mentality; Raffi Torres and Aaron Rome who's names are now both synonymous with 'instant concussion and suspension'.

I'm not saying it's coincidence (it's Mike Gillis) but neither of those two are playing for the Canucks anymore and the Canucks are fading fast from Stanley Cup contention. Gillis is saying that window is closing despite still having 2 starting goalies and their all-star Sedins. A Canuck fan only has to look at the Bruins, who have kept their roster pretty much intact and lost only their all-star goalie to start breaking out the Crying Towel and just sit back and prepare for the inevitable 'rebuilding' talk.

But that's for another day. Let's get to figuring out just how close this Stanley Cup will be. Here is Ogie's nuanced breakdown of the Chicago Blackhawks and Boston Bruins, two of the original six teams but I doubt that fact will be mentioned less than 50x leading up to the puck drop on Wednesday and 10x a game after that before commercial breaks.



Their Roads to the Cup

Boston Bruins; 

First Round - gave Toronto fans the greatest heartbreak since Doug Gilmour was injured forever back in 2003 by teasing them with that 3 goal lead with 10 minutes to play in game 7 before basically stopped fucking around and destroyed the hopes of Leaf Nation in the best or worst way possible, depending on which team you were cheering for.

Second Round- made the New York Rangers look so bad they benched Brad Richards before Rick Nash and then convinced Glen Sather the reason they lost was due to John Tortorella and not say...signing Nash and Richards while letting Prust go, which would have been due to ... Glen Sather.

To be fair, the referees weren't calling much

Third Round - Pittsburgh.  Pick any player from the Penguins; they had 0 points. Total domination.

When it gets down to it, Claude Julien outcoached Dan Blysma.  Talent such as Crosby/Letang/Iginla/Malkin etc etc is great in theory but give me a well-disciplined team that listens to their coach's game plan and you have a winner every time. Oh, and a Giant Freak of Nature.




Chicago Blackhawks

First Round - Played with the Minnesota Wild by letting them win one game, which was 1000% better than the Vancouver Canucks.

Second Round - defeated Detroit by letting them win 3 games before deciding to start playing a little bit and game back to win the final three to take the best of 7 in a thrilling surprising overtime win. Surprising because there was an overtime.

Seabrook's series winning goal caused
mass O-faces for all Chicagoians

Especially this guy. Nobody was happier
than this guy...

Third Round - defeated the LA Kings in 5 games, a team which bares (ha) a remarkable similarity to the Bruins - a well-disciplined team that relies on their goaltender to stop pucks first, team scores with pucks later.

The Blackhawks have been near unstoppable all season, despite not having Pittsburgh's vaunted offense but still having a pretty good line up themselves. What they needed was the chance to come back from adversity and they did that with their win over the Red Wings. The LA Kings play a similar style to the Bruins and Coach Quenneville found a way to beat their tight checking system and one of the NHL's best goalies in Quick. He will face a similar task with Boston and Rask.


Road to Stanley Cup; Even


The Don Cherry Factor - Two things Don Cherry loves are Boston and Canadian boys.  Let's see how the teams match up internationally.


The Bruins;

# of Canadians 18
# of Americans 5
# of Giants 1
# of Others 6
'C' is a Slovak
Goalie - Finnish
Beards Yes
Brad Marchands; 1

The Blackhawks

# of Canadians 13
# of Americans 5
# Giants 0
# of Others 8
# of Swedes 4
'C' is Canadian
Goalie - Canadian
Beards - not so much

Crazy psychos 1 - Daniel Carcillo


Boston has the edge on Canadian talent and number of giants on their team, Chicago has a Canadian Captain and a goalie but are woefully underrepresented in noses and beards.

Edge; Boston

Game-changing Player;

Boston - Nathan Horton is +20. just sayin' if he's playin'...  Susceptible to blind-side late hits.
Chicago - Brian 'Dill' Bickell. He's the new Dustin Byfuglien. If he gets in front of the net, he's hard to move, even if you ask him nicely. Plus he's an unrestricted free agent next year, so Ka-Ching!

Edge; Chicago

Superstition/Winning Incentive;

Chicago; Patrick Kane and Sushi
Boston; Greg Campbell breaking his leg

Edge; Chicago


The Hometown Goal Song:

Chelsea Dagger by the Fratellis

Boston; Kernkraft 400 - Zombie Nation




Edge; Chicago unless this was the year 2000 and the finals were held at a German rave.

Summary;

1 - Don Cherry Factor; Boston
2- Offensive Game; Chicago
3- Defensive Game; Boston
4- Goalies; Even
5- Game Changer; Chicago
6- Noses; Boston
7- Giants; Boston
8- Coach; Chicago
9- Song; Chicago
10-Crowd; Even
11- Logos; Even
12 -Superstition/Good Luck Charm; Chicago


So there you go, thanks to my complicated algorithms and advanced knowledge of killing time thinking about this shit, this handy summary makes it pretty obvious to me. So instead of watching what should be another close 7 game series, you can do something else like...  ....   .....