Thomas Most Valuable Already?

It seems to be the perfect combination for the Boston Bruins: larger-than-life Zdeno Chara patrolling up front, smashing people into the boards, while goalie Tim Thomas holds down the fort.

The Bruins are riding them through the Stanley Cup playoffs, with everything coming down to tonight’s winner-take-all Game 7 in Vancouver. The Bruins have made a habit of playing Game 7s in the playoffs this year, with their series against the Canadiens and Lightning going the distance.

If Chara and Thomas are again dominant, the Bruins could be on their way to winning their first Stanley Cup in 39 years. If either one — or both — has an off-night, look out.

The Boston Globe’s Kevin Paul Dupont writes the six games of skirmish have revealed little about which team is best. But the struggle has shown how valuable Chara and Thomas are.

“…What we can say with certainty is that the Bruins’ best players — goalie Tim Thomas and 6-foot-9-inch captain/defenseman/shutdown cyborg Zdeno Chara — have been the Bruins’ best players,” Dupont wrote. “If tonight it comes down to best players doing best things, then the Bruins will be champs for the first time since 1972, because Tank and Big Z have put a chokehold on the game’s top offensive collaborators….”

Chara’s game is as big as his 6-foot-9 frame: thundering checks, swarming defense, and a Death Star-like ominous presence in the ice. Thomas has been a model of calm and consistency, refusing to get into a war of words with opposing goalie Roberto Luongo or be suckered out of the net going for too big of a play.

Playing goalie, especially in a pressure-packed Game 7, can be the loneliest spot on the ice. All eyes will be on Thomas, and Luongo too, to see if they will be a hero or a goat.

“The first thing I do is not think about the millions and millions of people that are watching,’’ Thomas told the Boston Globe about Game 7’s pressures. “It shouldn’t matter whether you have a packed building or are playing in an empty rink. You try to get the same focus that you had as a kid when you were out playing on the pond, and you’re just enjoying the game.’’

The argument is floating around that Thomas should win the Conn Smythe Trophy, given to the most valuable player of the playoffs, even if the Bruins lose. Two Four goalies have won the Conn Smythe in losing efforts: Roger Crozier of the Detroit Red Wings (1966), Glenn Hall of the Blues (1968), Ron Hextall of the Flyers (1987) and Jean-Sebastien Giguere of the Anaheim Ducks (2003).

Toronto Star columnist Cathal Kelly, in a sarcasm-laden column decrying that neither team deserves the Stanley Cup, only respects Thomas.

“There’s only one man here who will leave the Stanley Cup finals with his dignity intact,” Kelly wrote. “If the Cup were mine to give, I’d give it to Bruins goalie Tim Thomas. Just Tim Thomas.

“Everyone else back away from the table. Henrik Sedin, Zdeno Chara, feel free to paw the conference trophies all you want now. Take them home, put wheels on them and ride them through Europe all summer long. The rest of you can carry Gary Bettman around for a while. Don’t drop him. He hasn’t signed the Winnipeg papers yet.

“Tim, please accept the Cup and our congratulations as long as you promise not to let any of the rest of these mooks touch it. Like naughty children, their brand of noodle-brained hockey should not be rewarded with treats.”

Thomas, if the Bruins win, will become only the fourth goalie to go from being an N.C.A.A. star to Stanley Cup champion. Ed Belfour (North Dakota), Mike Richter (Wisconsin) and Ken Dryden (Cornell), according to NHL.com, all were collegiate starters who won N.H.L. titles.

Thomas, a native of Flint, Mich., played at the University of Vermont, helping his team reach the 1996 Frozen Four.

“I had never even been to Vermont — or even east of Buffalo,” Thomas told NHL.com about choosing to play at Vermont. “I just wanted to go and become the first person in my family to graduate. To be completely honest, I’m sure I was hoping to someday play in the N.H.L., but my ultimate goal was to get the scholarship and play college hockey.”

Daniel Sedin Predicts Canucks Victory. Well, Maybe Not

The Canucks’ Daniel Sedin pulled off one of the funnier backtrackings in recent Stanley Cup annals. In Tuesday’s Vancouver Sun he was quoted as saying, “We’re going to win Game 7” against the Boston Bruins. But on Wednesday morning he softened that sentiment to a grand extent.

“You know, that was probably me being excited and the words came wrong out of my mouth,” Sedin said. “What I said was if we put our best game on the ice, I like our chances. That’s the way it’s been all year. When we play our best, we’re a tough team to beat. We show that at home. We like our chances.”

Bruins Take Cup, Vancouver Cleans Up

It was a night of exalted highs and tragic lows in Vancouver, British Columbia, as Wednesday night’s deciding Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals went Boston’s way. The Bruins jumped on the Canucks, and brought the excited crowd in the Rogers Centre to stunned silence.

The Bruins won, 4-0, and took the Stanley Cup back to Boston for the first time since 1972. Goalie Tim Thomas won the Conn Smythe trophy for being voted the best player of the playoffs, and was feted by the Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan for his steely calm.

The ESPNBoston.com columnist Jackie MacMullan feels the Bruins used their cohesiveness and teamwork to wear down the Canucks.

“When their season reached its most critical juncture, when those hockey dreams nurtured on the frozen ponds of Flint, Mich., and Trencin, Czechoslovakia, and Halifax, Nova Scotia, and L’Ancienne-Lorette, Quebec, were hanging in the balance, the Boston Bruins flew more than 2,500 miles to an arena jammed with rabid fans hollering for their demise and did what champions do: They delivered. Together,” MacMullan wrote.

The Boston Herald also praised the Bruins for their triumph, with Dan Duggan focusing on the injured wing Nathan Horton’s emotional contributions to the effort.

While the Bruins celebrated the win in Vancouver and their fans safely and sanely partied back in Boston, Canucks fans took to the downtown streets of Vancouver with more menacing intent. More than 150 people were injured as storefronts were destroyed and looted, cars overturned and burned, and fights raged.

The main headline on The Vancouver Sun’s Web site decries, “Canuck hockey dream now Vancouver’s nightmare”.

The news of violence raced around the world, with the British Broadcasting Corp. putting the Vancouver story on its homepage.

An estimated crowd of 70,000 had gathered outside Rogers Arena in the hours leading up to Game 7, wanting to be a part of what they assumed would be a Canucks victory party. The crowd turned angry as the reality of the loss set in.

The crowd inside the arena wasn’t happy either, as somebody launched a cup of cola in the direction of N.H.L. Commissioner Gary Bettman, according to The Vancouver Sun. The flying soda just missed Bettman, coming within four feet, but the hearty boos and catcalls for Bettman hit their intended target.

The Canadian Broadcast Corp.’s postgame coverage switched from chronicling the Bruins to live scenes of cars burning and people breaking into a drugstore and department store. The Province newspaper’s Web site did a live-time chronicling of the unrest, complete with eyewitness accounts and photos.

The scenes of unrest were an unfortunate repeat of 1994, when Canucks fans rioted after a Game 7 loss to the Rangers and caused more than $1 million Canadian in damage to Vancouver.

The Vancouver Sun columnist Sam Cole chided Canucks fans and Vancouverites for their violent reactions and loss of control.

“Flummoxed, frustrated, driven mad by an inability to shoot, run, kick, bulldoze or otherwise squeeze a puck past Boston’s Tim Thomas for most of seven straight games, the Canucks let a dream season go to waste Wednesday night, losing Game 7 and the Stanley Cup on home ice to an infinitely better-organized, stronger Bruins team,” Cole wrote. “And then the whole damned city lost its class.

“Again. Just like 1994. No lesson learned. The Olympics was the exception. Civil disobedience is the rule. It started outside the arena, where the usual thugs and goofballs took their frustrations out on cars and cops and property, though they’d probably have just found a different reason to do it if the Canucks had won…”

While the Canucks players were contemplating a championship opportunity lost, reporters were asking them about the looting and burning happening outside the arena.

“It’s terrible,” Canucks forward Henrik Sedin told The Vancouver Sun, while shaking his head in disbelief. “This city and province has a lot to be proud of, the team we have and the guys we have in here. It’s too bad.”