Boston Bruins Beat Vancouver Canucks 4—0 to Tie NHL Stanley Cup Finals Series

After a pair of very narrow defeats, the Boston Bruins have trounced the Vancouver Canucks in two consecutive games.

Rich Peverley scores the first Bruins goal of Game Four of the 2011 NHL Stanley Cup Final, beating Roberto Luongo one-on-one. Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

After a pair of very narrow defeats, the Boston Bruins have trounced the Vancouver Canucks in two consecutive games, scoring 12 goals to their opponent’s one.

After Monday night’s 8–1 blowout, the questions were, could the Bruins maintain that level of intensity after having had a day to absorb the injury to Nathan Horton, and could the Canucks regroup and put Monday’s drubbing in the past.

Yes, and mostly yes, were the answers. The Canucks, with one exception started fresh Wednesday night. But the one exception—Roberto Luongo—was so key to the Canucks’ success, his shaky confidence sank the team.

So far in this series, the goaltenders have saved their teams. Whenever the tremendous defense broke down, the netminders came though. Tim Thomas played that way Wednesday night. Roberto Luongo didn’t.

It is impossible to know how the “might-have-beens” would have worked out. But if Luongo had been as brilliant Wednesday night as he had been in the first three games …

In the first period, Rich Peverley got a breakaway and beat Luongo heads-up. Halfway through the second , Michael Ryder beat him in the same place—glove-side, shoulder high—another shot that Luongo would have stopped in any other playoff game.