AnySportAnyTime

It was quite an end to the NHL season on Wednesday night in Vancouver, riots aside, with the Boston Bruins providing a huge upset at Rogers Arena to capture the 2011 Stanley Cup.

Now, when I say “upset,” it’s not so much that the Bruins beat the Canucks, it’s how they did it. Did anyone honestly predict that Boston, who had scored three times in Vancouver over the first three games there, would come out and put up a four-spot in game seven? I certainly didn’t!

One thing that wasn’t a surprise at all was the awarding of the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP to Bruins goalie Tim Thomas – he earned his second shutout of the final in the deciding game and ends up with a 1.14 goals against average against Vancouver. He was absolutely ridiculous during the playoffs and many people were convinced that he would win MVP honors regardless of the outcome on Wednesday.

Here’s the bad news though: that’s it for the season! We’ve got the NHL awards coming up, the draft a few days later, free agency kicks off a week after that and then we’re into the dog days!

Before we completely close the book on the season that was though, I feel it’s only fitting that we look back at the top 10 goals (as chosen by me) of the 2011 Stanley Cup playoffs… (more…)