CanadianCrossing.com enjoyed watching Maxim Lapierre as he played a strong role in the Montréal Canadiens surge of 2010.
And while Lapierre started out with Les Habs, he bounced to Anaheim and later Vancouver. And when Lapierre was traded to the Canucks, many thought he was the wrong person for the wrong team at the wrong time.
Yet Lapierre put the Vancouver Canucks one win away from their first Stanley Cup with a 3rd period goal off Boston goalie Tim Thomas.
Kevin Bieska deserves a lot of credit with an unusual assist with a deliberate pass designed to bounce off behind the goal.
Lapierre's positioning reminded me of the kind of goals he scored in last year's playoffs for the rouge, blanc, et bleu pour Les Habs. He is one of those players who knows Boston really well, given the huge rivalry between Montréal and Boston, regular season and playoffs.
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There can be some confusion, given that Boston outscored Vancouver 12-1 in the two games in Boston, yet the Canucks pull off a 1-0 win. Hockey is like this sometimes.
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Roberto Luongo has taken some flak for the play in Boston, and that Cory Schneider came in relief for Luongo in Game 4. Though Luongo is now the first goalie to post at least two shutouts in the Stanley Cup finals since Chris Osgood (Detroit) in 2008, and has stopped 95 of 97 shots at Rogers Arena in this series.
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Lapierre first got noticed in Game 5 when he took a stick in the gut from Zdeno Chara in the 1st period. This was one of many calls where a Boston player strikes a Vancouver player with no repercussions.
A short time later, Alex Burrows gets tripped by Milan Lucic with 32.2 seconds left in the 1st period. Though Burrows got tripped by Lucic, both players got penalized.
This was at least the second time in the series where the refs acted in an unprofessional manner toward Burrows.
Dennis Seidenberg takes down Burrows later in the game with no penalty; this may not have counted as the third time, but yet another penalty against Boston that went uncalled.
The refereeing has been disgraceful in this series. If Vancouver pulls this off, it will happen despite the refs.
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We haven't been happy with NBC's camera work, but there were new angles in the celebration after Lapierre's goal. When you see the CBC feed, you see better angles plus the shots of fans celebrating inside and outside. Of course, NBC won't show the fans outside.
The NHL Network showed Milan Lucic interacting with the Green Men. That feed came from the CBC; of course, the feed didn't come from NBC as the network is still afraid to show the Green Men.
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While the on-air talent at NBC is vehemently rooting for Boston, some of the NBC executives might be rooting for a Vancouver win in Game 6.
NBC kept showing promos for America's Got Talent to air Wednesday night. And a potential Game 7 would be Wednesday night. You would think hockey would be more important, but reality TV has a twisted profit margin concept.
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