Canucks: 10 year anniversary of 2011 Stanley Cup Final

In the middle of June 2011, Adele’s Rolling in the Deep was at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, Super 8 was the highest grossing movie at the box office and, more importantly, the Vancouver Canucks were hoping to win their first Stanley Cup in franchise history after 40 years of hurt.

Unfortunately, as we all know, the team ended up being a win short. In fact, the Canucks are the only team in NHL history to lose game seven of the Stanley Cup Final twice. The first being in New York, losing 3-2 to the Rangers in 1994, and the second losing 4-0 on home ice to the Boston Bruins. (Fans caused destruction in the downtown core both times, but let’s not get into that).

The 2011 Canucks team was favoured to win the cup even before the 2010-11 season started. That team scored plenty of goals, had great special teams, good goaltending and solid depth. Why couldn’t they win it all? How did it all fall apart? To answer these questions, we need to go back a little.

How was the team put together?

In the summer of 2010, GM-at-the-time Mike Gillis had work to do after his team suffered two straight second round exits to the Chicago Blackhawks, with the latter playoffs leading to a Stanley Cup win for Chicago. Gillis had most of his key players locked up, including Henrik and Daniel Sedin, Alex Burrows, Alex Edler, Ryan Kesler and Roberto Luongo, but the team still needed a few more pieces to move past their playoff woes.

The first need was help on the blue line. On June 25th, 2010, the team addressed that need, trading away their 2010 first round pick, as well as Steve Bernier and Michael Grabner, to the Florida Panthers in exchange for Keith Ballard and Victor Oreskovich.

The Canucks also took care of things in free agency, signing Dan Hamhuis to a six-year contract, Manny Malhotra to a three-year contract and Raffi Torres to a one-year contract.

At the trade deadline, Maxim Lapierre and Chris Higgins were acquired for cheap. After the deadline, the Canucks were just $1000 below the cap, which was $59.4 million at the time, due to injury. Had everyone been healthy entering the postseason, the team’s cap hit would have been at $67 million. Kudos to assistant general manager Laurence Gilman and the rest of the management for working out the cap in the Canucks favour.

After years in the AHL, Cory Schneider made his mark in the big league, serving as the backup for  Luongo. The duo would go on to win the William M. Jennings Trophy, an award giving to the goalie(s) that allowed the fewest goals during the regular season.

What went wrong?

As mentioned, the 2010-11 Canucks were the class of the NHL, finishing first in almost every statistical category. They won their first President’s Trophy, finishing the year with 117 points and a 54-19-9 record. Despite the numerous injuries throughout the year, that Canucks team found ways to win, particularly during the playoffs.

In the first round, they were finally able to move past the Blackhawks, holding off their push after being down 3-0 in the series, thanks to Burrows slaying the dragon. They took care of the Nashville Predators in six games, in large part due to the efforts of Kesler, who was given the nickname “Beast Mode.”  Kevin Bieksa’s game five double overtime stanchion winner (No, not Wyatt Arndt) sealed the Canucks’ series with the Sharks, punching their ticket to the Stanley Cup Final.

Standing in their way, of course, was the Boston Bruins.

The Bruins finished third in the Eastern Conference during the regular season, and were able to get by the Montreal Canadiens, Philadelphia Flyers and Tampa Bay Lightning en route to the finals. Two of those series went the distance, with Boston coming away with game seven victories against the Habs and Lightning.

Prior to the Final, the Canucks were the favourites to win. One of the reasons for that was their powerplay. The Canucks’ powerplay was lethal, whereas the Bruins’ powerplay struggled throughout the playoffs.

Unfortunately, the Canucks powerplay would score only twice in the series, while the Bruins man advantage would score five times.

Scoring was the Canucks’ biggest weapon throughout the season, but it unfortunately dried up at the worst possible time. Vancouver only managed eight goals in seven games against Boston, and that was largely due to superb goaltending from Tim Thomas, who eventually won both the Conn Smythe and the Vezina Trophy for his efforts. No matter what the Canucks tried, it seemed that Thomas was unbeatable, especially in the three home games at TD Garden.

On the flip side, despite performing well at home, Luongo played poorly on the road, giving up 15 goals in those three games. He was pulled for Schneider in games four and six.

The Canucks’ main scorers, the Sedins, Burrows and Kesler, basically became invisible when it mattered, forcing the team to rely on depth scoring from Lapierre and Torres, which also wasn’t consistent.

There was also bad luck, too. In the early moments of game six, Henrik Sedin had an open goal, but he couldn’t get his stick on the puck for the tap-in.

The turning point of the series was when Aaron Rome laid out a big hit on Nathan Horton in game three. The jury is still out on whether the hit was clean or not but, nonetheless, Rome was suspended for the rest of the series and Horton sustained a concussion that marked the beginning of the end of his career. The hit woke the Bruins up and they started playing much more physical as a result, which the Canucks couldn’t match. In other words, the Canucks poked the bear and it made them pay.

There was also some questionable officiating in the series, particularly Johnny Boychuk getting away with hitting Mason Raymond into the boards. Raymond suffered a fractured vertebrae and Boychuk did not receive a penalty or suspension.

There most likely would have been a parade on Georgia Street had the Canucks hadn’t dealt with numerous injuries.  Kesler was playing with a torn groin and hip labrum suffered in game five against the Sharks, Edler played game seven with two broken fingers and Mikael Samuelsson injured his abductor tendon and sports hernia in game three against Nashville. Hamhuis tore his groin muscle in game one after hitting Milan Lucic, which left a big hole in the Canucks defence. Christian Ehroff had been playing with a hurt shoulder that he sustained in game three against San Jose, and had painkillers shot in his shoulder before every game as a result. Chris Higgins blocked a shot in game five against Nashville, forcing him to play with a broken foot for the remainder of the playoffs.

As much as the loss stung for the fans, it hurt even more for players, coaches and management.

“What I learned that year, and it’s stuck with me, is that the best team doesn’t always win,” Gilman told the Toronto Sun in March 2020.  “It’s the team playing the best at that time, that wins. And that wasn’t us. It haunts me to this day. It lives with me every day. It is without a doubt the most crushing defeat I’ve experienced in my professional career of some 25 years. It’s left a bad taste in my mouth.

Kesler also spoke about the loss on his new show, “Kes’ House”, which can be seen on the Sportsnet Youtube Channel. He even took a shot at the reffing.

“We lost at home, Game 7. The refs were f***ing brutal. Now they call penalties, but back you got Marchand slew-footing guys. It was just bulls**t. We were just a skilled team, we were really banged up. I know it sounds like a lot of excuses, but half our lineup was hurt. I blew out my hip and I was still playing, but that by far was probably my fondest memory. I lived a mile away from the arena,  it took me an hour and a half after we beat San Jose in the Conference Final, to get home.”