2011 Stanley Cup Finals

The 2011 Stanley Cup Finals was the championship series of the National Hockey League's (NHL), and the culmination of the 2011 Stanley Cup playoffs. The Eastern Conference champion Boston Bruins defeated the Western Conference champion Vancouver Canucks in seven games to win the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1972. Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the Most Valuable Player of the playoffs.

The Canucks had home ice advantage in the Finals by winning the Presidents' Trophy as the team that finished with the best regular season record (117 points). They were also the first Canadian team to have home ice advantage in the Finals since the Montreal Canadiens had it for the 1993 Stanley Cup Finals. The Canucks were also the last Canadian team to reach the Finals until 2021. It was the furthest distance between two cities in NHL history for the Finals, at 4023 km, until 2024 between the Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers.

On June 1, 2011, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman made an announcement that Colin Campbell would be stepping down as the league's head disciplinarian to be replaced by former player Brendan Shanahan, though Campbell would continue in his job as director of hockey operations. Mike Murphy, the NHL vice-president of hockey operations, had already been put in charge of disciplinary matters for the Finals, nonetheless there were concerns raised about Campbell's impartiality in handing out discipline since his son, Gregory, was an active player on the Boston Bruins.

The series began on June 1 and ended on June 15. The games varied widely between those played in Vancouver and those in Boston. Prior to game seven, the Bruins scored two goals in three games played in Vancouver (Games 1, 2 and 5), against 17 scored in three games at Boston (Games 3, 4 and 6). On the other hand, while posting two shutouts in Vancouver (Games 1 and 5), Canucks goaltender Roberto Luongo was replaced with the backup Cory Schneider twice in three games (Games 3, 4 and 6) in Boston. The Bruins scored almost three times the number of total goals as the Canucks, (23–8 in the series), and scored as many goals in a single game (game 3) as the Canucks did during the entire series, but the Canucks still won three games (Games 1, 2 and 5, respectively). The eight goals scored by Vancouver is the lowest number of goals scored by any team in a full seven-game series in NHL history. It was the fourth consecutive Stanley Cup Finals in which the road team won the Stanley Cup.

Boston Bruins
The Bruins finished the regular season as the Northeast Division champion with 103 points, earning the third seed in the Eastern Conference. In their 33rd postseason meeting, Boston eliminated their bitter rivals, the sixth seeded Montreal Canadiens, in the first round of the playoffs in seven games. The Bruins went on to sweep the second seeded Philadelphia Flyers in the second round, outscoring the Flyers 20–7 in the four games. Later, in the Eastern Conference Finals, Boston defeated the fifth seeded Tampa Bay Lightning in seven games.

This was the eighteenth appearance in the Stanley Cup Finals for the Bruins, and their first since, which they lost in five games to the Edmonton Oilers. It also allowed Boston to join Philadelphia as being the only cities to have all their teams play in each of the four major North American professional sports leagues' title rounds since 2000, following the Patriots in Super Bowls XXXVI in 2002, XXXVIII in 2004, XXXIX in 2005, and XLII in 2008. The Red Sox winning World Series titles in, , and the Celtics in the NBA Finals in and  and winning in 2008.

The Bruins won their sixth Cup championship, and their first one since defeating the New York Rangers in in six games, which made Boston the first city to have championships in each of the four leagues in the new millennium.

Vancouver Canucks
The Canucks, in their 41st season, finished the regular season with the best record at 117 points, winning their first Presidents' Trophy in team history. In the first round of the playoffs, the Canucks met the Chicago Blackhawks for the third consecutive postseason, losing both previous series in six games in the second round. After Vancouver won the first three games, the eighth seeded and defending Stanley Cup champion Blackahwks won the next three to force a seventh game. Vancouver won the seventh game in overtime on a goal by Alex Burrows to avoid becoming the fourth team in NHL history to lose a series after taking a 3–0 series lead. The Canucks then eliminated the fifth seeded Nashville Predators in six games during the conference semifinals, with each game in that series decided by just a single goal (with the exception of an empty net goal scored by Vancouver in Game 4). Vancouver then went on to defeat the second seeded San Jose Sharks in the Western Conference Finals in five games, winning the fifth game in overtime.

This was Vancouver's third appearance in the Stanley Cup Finals. They appeared in the Finals against New York-based teams with the Islanders in and the Rangers in  losing both series in four and seven games, respectively. The most recent Canada-based NHL team to win the Stanley Cup was the Montreal Canadiens in. The Canucks were the first team from Canada to make it to the Finals since the Ottawa Senators in.

With Vancouver hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics, the Canucks hoped to mirror the other two Olympic Games held in Canada in which the host city's NHL team won the Stanley Cup the proceeding year. Montreal hosted the 1976 Summer Olympics and the following year, the Canadiens won the Stanley Cup. The Calgary Flames won the Stanley Cup in, the previous year Calgary hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics.

With the loss, Vancouver became the third team to lose in the Finals after winning the Presidents' Trophy, after the Bruins in and the Detroit Red Wings in.

Triple Gold Club
Center Patrice Bergeron became the twenty-fifth player to enter the "Triple Gold Club", consisting of individuals who have won the Stanley Cup along with gold medals at the Winter Olympics, and World Championships, as a result of the Bruins winning the series. Bergeron also won gold medals as a teammate of Vancouver Canucks' goaltender Roberto Luongo at the 2004 Worlds and 2010 Olympics with Team Canada. Luongo – who also won the 2003 Worlds – would have become the first goaltender ever to enter the "Triple Gold Club", had the Canucks won. Both Luongo and Bergeron later got a second Olympic gold in the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Game summaries

 *  Number in parentheses represents the player's total in goals or assists to that point of the entire four rounds of the playoffs

Game 1
Raffi Torres's goal with 18.5 seconds left in regulation broke a scoreless tie to give the Canucks the victory. The entire game was seen as a duel between the two opposing goaltenders; both Vancouver's Roberto Luongo and Boston's Tim Thomas were Vezina Trophy finalists for the 2010–11 season. Thomas stopped 33 of 34 shots while Luongo made 36 saves for his third shutout of the 2011 playoffs. Both of Luongo's two previous shutouts of the 2011 playoffs had also occurred in a game one (a 2–0 victory against Chicago in the first round, and a 1–0 victory against Nashville in the second round). This was the first time since that the opening game of the Cup Finals was scoreless through two periods.

Both teams killed off all penalties in the game, including a five-on-three power play Boston had in the second period, and a double minor high-sticking penalty called on Vancouver's Daniel Sedin in the first. At the end of the first period, Vancouver's Alex Burrows was called for a double minor roughing penalty on Boston's Patrice Bergeron, while Bergeron also got a roughing minor. Replays showed that Burrows could have bit Bergeron's finger, but the evidence was inconclusive. Despite Bergeron's pleading to the referees, no additional penalty was assessed to Burrows. However, despite biting being a suspendible offense, Burrows did not receive a suspension from the NHL on the grounds that no conclusive evidence that Burrows actually bit Bergeron could be found.

Game 2
In the second-fastest overtime in Stanley Cup Finals history, Alex Burrows scored 11 seconds into the first overtime to give Vancouver a 3–2 win. Burrows faked a shot, causing Boston goalie Tim Thomas to move out of position, then skated around the net to put the puck into the empty net for the game-winning goal; Thomas was not able to recover his position. This was Burrows's second goal of the game. He opened the scoring with a goal in the first period during the final seconds of a power play. Boston responded with two goals in the second period, one by Milan Lucic and a power play goal by Mark Recchi. However, Daniel Sedin tied the score at 2–2 about midway through the third period.

The game featured the return of Vancouver forward Manny Malhotra, who had not played a game since March 16, when he suffered a severe eye injury after taking a puck to the face from a deflection by Colorado Avalanche defenseman Erik Johnson. Both Thomas and Roberto Luongo stopped 30 of 33 shots and 28 of 30 shots, respectively. With his second period goal, 43-year-old Recchi became the oldest player to score in the Cup Finals.

Before the game, the Boston Red Sox baseball club moved their game against the Oakland Athletics at Fenway Park from 7:10 p.m. EDT to 1:10 p.m. EDT to allow for Bruins fans to watch the game.

Game 3
Boston scored four goals in the second period, and another four goals in the third, which resulted in an 8–1 rout. Mark Recchi scored two of them; Brad Marchand and Daniel Paille each scored shorthanded; and Andrew Ference, David Krejci, Chris Kelly and Michael Ryder each tallied one of the other four. Tim Thomas stopped 40 out of 41 shots, only allowing a third period goal by Jannik Hansen.

At 05:07 into the first period, Vancouver defenseman Aaron Rome received a major penalty for interference and a game misconduct for a blindside hit to the head of Boston forward Nathan Horton. Horton was taken off the ice on a stretcher and was then transported to a hospital for further observation and was later diagnosed with a severe concussion. However, the Bruins did not score on the ensuing five-minute power play. Following a disciplinary hearing on June 7, Rome was given a four-game suspension for the late hit which assured that he'd miss the remainder of the 2011 playoffs, the first multi-game suspension in the history of the Stanley Cup Finals. Rome and the Canucks maintained that the play was a good hit that went bad, but the NHL determined that the hit came more than a second after Horton gave up the puck. The NHL considers a hit to be late if it comes more than half a second after a player gives up possession.

In contrast to game two, which featured only 10 minutes of penalties for the entire game, game three had 145 total penalty minutes, the most in a Cup Final game since 1990. The 8–1 score was the biggest goal differential in the Stanley Cup Finals since, when the Colorado Avalanche defeated the Florida Panthers in game two by the same score.

Game 4
Tim Thomas made 38 saves and Rich Peverley scored two goals as Boston shut out Vancouver, 4–0, to even the series. Roberto Luongo, who stopped only 16 out of 20 shots, was replaced by backup goalie Cory Schneider after giving up the fourth Boston goal at 03:39 of the third period.

Game 5
Roberto Luongo made 31 saves and Maxim Lapierre scored the game's only goal to give Vancouver a 3–2 series lead. This was the second 1–0 victory for Vancouver in the Finals; game one ended with the same score. Lapierre's goal came at 04:35 into the third period. Kevin Bieksa's shot went wide and rebounded off the end boards to Lapierre on the other side of the net, who then beat Tim Thomas after the Boston goalie was unable to recover his position in time. Thomas made 24 saves in the loss.

Luongo joined Frank McCool as the only goalie to have two 1–0 shutouts in the Stanley Cup Finals; McCool's victories came 66 years earlier in.

Game 6
Boston defeated Vancouver 5–2 in TD Garden to force a deciding seventh game, the 16th in Finals history. The Bruins scored four goals in a span of 4:14 in the first period, breaking the record for the quickest four goals tallied by one team in the Cup Finals. For the second time in the series, Roberto Luongo was replaced by backup goalie Cory Schneider; this came after Luongo gave up Boston's third goal at 08:35.

Vancouver forward Mason Raymond suffered a fractured vertebra 20 seconds into the game on an awkward hit into the boards by Boston defenseman Johnny Boychuk, and had to be taken to a hospital for treatment.

Game 7
In Boston's first-ever Stanley Cup Final Game 7, Tim Thomas made 37 saves as Boston shut out Vancouver, 4–0, to win the Stanley Cup. Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand each scored two goals for Boston. Bergeron scored first at 14:37 in the first period, then had a shorthanded goal at 17:35 in the second. Marchand's first goal came at 12:13 of the second period; he then scored on an empty net late in the third. Roberto Luongo stopped 17 out of 20 shots in the loss. The game was the last of Mark Recchi's 22-year NHL career; he announced his retirement immediately afterward, during the post-game celebration.

Television
In Canada, the series was televised in English on CBC and in French on the cable network RDS. In the United States, NBC broadcast the first two and final three games, while Versus (now NBCSN) televised games three and four.

Ratings
Game one on NBC drew the best television ratings for a first game since game one of the 1999 Stanley Cup Finals, drawing a 3.2 rating, up 14 percent from game one of the Finals. The rating was boosted by heavy interest in Boston's large market, which posted a 25.5/39, topping the 19.1/34 for game one of the 2010 NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers.

In contrast, game two drew just 3.37 million viewers for NBC, making it the least-watched Stanley Cup Finals broadcast on U.S. network television since game five in, which also was the last time a Canadian team (the Ottawa Senators) advanced to the Cup Finals.

Games six, five and one are the third, fourth, and fifth most-watched CBC Sports programs with an average Canadian audience of 6.6 million, 6.1 million, and 5.6 million viewers respectively, after the men's ice hockey gold medal game between Canada and the United States at the 2002 Winter Olympics. Game seven was the highest rated game on both sides of the border. In Canada, it was second most-watched CBC Sports program, drawing an average of 8.76 million viewers and trailing only the men's gold medal game in ice hockey at the 2002 Winter Olympics; In the US, NBC's broadcast drew a 5.7 national overnight rating and a 10 share (numbers that equaled game seven of the 2003 Stanley Cup Finals), a number later updated to 8.5 million viewers, making the game the most watched NHL broadcast in the US since 1973. In the Boston market alone, the broadcast pulled in a 43.4 rating and a 64 share.

Vancouver riots
The seventh and final game of the series attracted huge crowds on the streets of Vancouver who gathered to watch the game on outside monitors and cheer the home team on. Shortly before the game ended with the apparent loss for Vancouver, fires were set on West Georgia Street. After the game ended, cars were set on fire and fighting broke out. Soon, a riot was in progress in downtown Vancouver, with police cars set on fire, shops looted and attendant destruction of property. The damage was expected to be greater than the 1994 Vancouver riots that occurred after Vancouver lost the Stanley Cup Finals in seven games to the New York Rangers.

Officials

 * Referees: Dan O'Halloran, Dan O'Rourke, Kelly Sutherland, Stephen Walkom
 * Linesmen: Steve Miller, Jean Morin, Pierre Racicot, Jay Sharrers

Team rosters
Years indicated in boldface under the "Finals appearance" column signify that the player won the Stanley Cup in the given year.

Stanley Cup engraving
The 2011 Stanley Cup was presented to Boston Bruins' captain Zdeno Chara by NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman following the Bruins' 4–0 win over the Vancouver Canucks in the seventh game of the finals.

The following Bruins players and staff had their names engraved on the Stanley Cup

2010–11 Boston Bruins