Cup Rematch Hostility, Briere Beats Ottawa

The Canucks went into Boston yesterday for the only meeting between the two teams in last season's Stanley Cup Finals. The game was hyped, scrutinized and for some reason scheduled in the afternoon.

It took all of four minutes (almost) for things to erupt. Alex Burrows gave Daniel Paille a stick tap while Paille was going back to the bench. Shawn Thornton was in the vicintiy and went right after Burrows. All the Canucks then pounced on Thornton, Henrik Sedin stepping away and onto the bench after Maxim Lapierre flew in. Zdeno Chara was able to ply away a few Canucks as the scrum developed.

Skating away from it was Nathan Horton and Dale Weise. They had a lengthy, back and forth bout as the rest of the teams continued to go at it near the benches.

Milan Lucic was ejected for leaving the bench to join the altercation. After review, the NHL rescineded the game misconduct, and obviously there will be no further discipline. Nevertheless, this left Boston without two of it's top goal scorers for the next five minutes, and one for the entirety of the game.

Later in the period, on the faceoff immediately after Brad Marchand tied up the game, Maxim Lapierre and Gregory Campbell dropped the gloves and squared off cleanly. They grappled and attempted to throw some punches, but had each other locked up well.

Towards the end of the second period, with the score tied 2-2, Marchand was ejected for clipping Sami Salo. Vancouver, having the league's best power play unit, capitalized by scoring two goals within the 5-minute man-advantage. Boston was now down another top goal scorer for the rest of the game. They were able to add one more goal, but the Canucks prevailed 4-3 in a wild, entertaining game. Unlike Lucic, Marchand may be looking at extra games.