NESN Bruins analyst Gord Kluzak was a guest on the Dennis & Callahan show Tuesday morning and discussed the Stanley Cup finals that are set to start Wednesday evening. The former B’s defenseman began his talk about the differences between the Bruins and Canucks, with the highlight among those differences regarding of course penalties. With its power-play unit struggling in the postseason, there’s no surprise that Kluzak would think that the B’s would hope that the referees keep the whistles away from their mouths. (To hear the entire interview, head over to the Dennis & Callahan audio on demand page.)

“Well, I think what the Bruins would want it to look like is very physical, sort of played in the corners and in the high traffic areas, certainly a five-on-five series,” Kluzak said. “I think what the Canucks would want it to look like is very end-to-end, very high-tempo, lots of penalties, lot of power plays on each ‘side. I think those are the two ways these teams are built.”

In fact, Kluzak went so far as to say that if the Bruins are going to be successful in the finals, they’ll need to reproduce their effort from the last game they played.

“I think the model for the Bruins and by far the best game they played was Game 7 against Tampa Bay,” he said. “That was as dominant of a 1-0 win as you’ll ever see. They had Tampa Bay completely stalled out. Even if they had chances, it was one and done. They just layered their defense so, so well, and all of that talent Tampa Bay had was totally squandered by the Bruins defensive schemes and intensity.” Read the rest of this entry »

VANCOUVER — Call Roberto Luongo and Tim Thomas polar opposites, but the truth is there was a time when the Canucks’ Vezina finalist seriously considered playing Thomas’ signature risk/reward, flopping style.

Roberto Luongo uses a different style to get the same results as Tim Thomas. (AP)

“I did when I was five and playing street hockey,” Luongo said with a laugh after Monday’s practice at Rogers Arena.

All kidding aside, Luongo made it pretty clear that he has a great amount of respect for Boston’s 37-year-old netminder. In the end, Luongo, along with Nashville’s Pekka Rinne, will fall short of Thomas when the Vezina is awarded this summer, so as unorthodox as Thomas plays, Luongo can appreciate what he’s doing.

“You’ve got to give him credit for the type of value that he has on the ice,” Luongo said. “When you play like that, you have to have tremendous reads and anticipation and things like that.”

Though their styles differ, both Thomas and Luongo share a 2.29 goals against average and have 12-6 records thus far in the postseason. Luongo was pulled twice and was even benched for a game in the first round against the Blackhawks, but since Game 7 of the quarterfinals has been sharp as a tack.

You won’t catch Luongo lunging to make save after save or using his stick to bat down game-tying goals, but just because he’s more of a conventional goalie does not mean he is fooled by Thomas’ tendency to be all over the place.

“I mean, he likes to make saves looking at the net. I like to look the other way,” Luongo said. “He’s a great goalie. He had a great year and he’s a guy that we can’t take for granted that just because maybe you think he’s out of position that we’re going to get a goal. We have to make sure that we bear down and bury it, because he’ll find a way to stop it.”

VANCOUVER — If some in Vancouver are concerned about the stats regarding the series’ top players favoring the Bruins, Canucks coach Alain Vigneault is not among them. The coach noted after Monday’s practice that the teams meet far too rarely to read into any head-to-head history.

In three career games vs. Vancouver, Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas has allowed just one goal while picking up a pair of shutouts. The Sedin twins haven’t fared too well against Boston in their playing days, as Daniel Sedin has five points in 10 career games vs. the B’s, while his brother, Henrik Sedin, has totaled four points vs. the B’s in 11 games.

“This is a team that we only play once a year, that we don’t see very often, so that one game in the season is probably not reflective of how both teams play on a regular basis,” Vigneault said. “It can be, but since we don’t see one another very often, I don’t think you can put too much emphasis on the stats from that game when you play once a year against a team.”

Tim Thomas has waited his whole career to get to this point and now the Bruins goalie will have the chance to play on hockey’s biggest stage and play for the most famous trophy in all of North American sports. Thomas stopped all 24 shots Friday night, posting his second shutout of the playoffs and third career in the postseason, in Boston’s 1-0 win that sends them to the Stanley Cup finals starting Wednesday in Vancouver.

“This is a great moment,” the 37-year-old Thomas said. “There’s no doubt about it. When’s the last time Boston’s been to the Stanley Cup finals? Twenty-one years. It’s been a long time for Boston, it’s been a long journey for me to get here. Now, you want to take advantage of this opportunity. There’s more work to be done. Unfortunately, that’s the way it is. You can’t ever be too happy for too long until you’re the last man standing.

“They had to earn. We pressured them, offensively. The only reason it was a 1-0 game was because of Dwayne Roloson. He played an incredible game.”

Roloson stopped the first 34 shots he faced before Nathan Horton put one past him with 7:33 left in the third for the deciding goal in the Eastern Conference finals.

Jeremy Roenick

Versus hockey analyst and former NHL star Jeremy Roenick joined The Big Show show Friday afternoon to talk about the decisive Eastern Conference finals Bruins-Lightning Game 7 matchup. To hear the interview, go to The Big Show audio on demand page.

Though Bruins goalie Tim Thomas will likely win the Vezina Trophy for the year’s best netminder, Roenick said he needs to improve his play for Game 7.

“I really don’t think he’s been very good in this series,” Roenick said. “I think he has to find a way to be just a little bit better, a little bit sharper. He doesn’t have to make saves like he did in Game 5. That was probably one of the best saves I’ve ever seen. But he has to find a way to keep this team, Tampa, down to two or three goals, because if he gives up another five goals, I don’t know if they’re going to be able to do anything.”

Roenick was even more critical of defenseman Tomas Kaberle, who came to Boston in trade from the Maple Leafs in February.

“He’s got a stick made of Jell-O,” Roenick said. “Kaberle doesn’t have a very good shot. He’s a playmaker and a very good playmaker. He shouldn’t be at the top putting shots on net. You should have Dennis Seidenberg up at the top pounding the puck on net, Kaberle on the side dishing the puck to the net.

“I think Kaberle played his best game maybe of the playoffs his last game. But I don’t think he’s been very good in the playoffs at all, not to mention since he’s come over from Toronto. He’s got to up his game another level. He hasn’t been in the playoffs for seven years. He’s got to show it a little bit harder tonight, but he’s one of those guys who can make a difference if he just makes the simple play and the right play like he has for many years, which has made him so good.”

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Versus NHL analyst and former NHL center Ed Olczyk joined the Mut & Merloni show Friday to talk about the Eastern Conference finals Game 7 showdown between the Bruins and Lightning. To hear the interview, go to the Mut & Merloni audio on demand page.

Olczyk made a comment during the Game 6 broadcast on Versus about Bruins coach Claude Julien needing to mix up the lines to get more consistent offense. While he acknowledged Friday, “I think Claude has pushed a lot of the right buttons,” he stood by his analysis.

“If you look at the [David] Krejci line, with them having the majority of the success at even strength, I just kind of felt at that time, when you look up at the shot [totals] and there’s not a lot of generating going on, you look to try to change it up,” he said. “You look to add a little spark somewhere.”

Olczyk also suggested making a change on the Bruins’ power play, which has struggled all postseason.

“If you are struggling — and I think at times the Bruins have done all the right things, they just haven’t been able to score,” he said. “So, the issue is, the check and balance is, do you drastically change your personnel and load up? I think for me, I think at some point if you’re going to play Big Z [Zdeno Chara] in front of the net, I think you’ve got to put Patrice Bergeron on a point on the power play if you’re not going to play him down low because you’ve got Krejci and [Nathan] Horton and Chara down there and you’ve got [Dennis] Seidenberg and [Tomas] Kaberle. I think you load up. I think you put Patrice Bergeron on a point on the power play with Dennis Seidenberg — if that’s my first unit.”

Added Olczyk: “I would suggest loading up your first-power-play unit. And Patrice Bergeron’s got to be on that first power-play unit. I just think he has that ability. He had a quiet game [Wednesday]. I think he’s been terrific since he’s come back, but he was very quiet, probably a little too quiet in Game 6. But for me, I would put Bergeron on a point with Seidenberg. I would put Kaberle on the second unit. And I would load up with Chara, Krejci and Horton on that first power-play unit. If you’re going to go down, go down with your best guys. Go down swinging.

“But if the Bruins can play well defensively, and I think they will, I think they’ll take on the Vancouver Canucks in the Stanley Cup finals.”

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Garry Galley

Hockey Night in Canada analyst and former Bruins defenseman Garry Galley joined the Dennis & Callahan show Friday morning, hours before Game 7 between the Bruins and Lightning. To hear the interview, go to the Dennis & Callahan audio on demand page.

Galley said the Bruins have the edge because of home-ice advantage and Tim Thomas.

“I always like the team that is at home, and I like the team that’s got the best goaltender,” he said. “Dwayne Roloson just has not had the kind of series, and he’s not exuding the kind of confidence right now that I would have liked to have seen. Even though he won Game 6, I don’t think he looked as good as I thought he was going to, and it’s a very tough series for him.

“I do believe you go with Dwayne Roloson. You have to; he’s the one who got you to the dance. And he’s capable of having a Game 7-winning kind of game. But I just think Tim Thomas has always bounced back from games like this. He shown in this series in Game 5 that he can pretty much win a game on his own. I like Boston in this.”

Galley also said he won’t be surprised if the game is decided on an unpredictable bounce of the puck.

“This game may come down to late in the third and overtime,” he said. “And it comes down to a bounce, guys, it always has. … There’s always something that happens. It’s a game of mistakes, so there will be a mistake on the play, and someone will benefit from it. I don’t think it will be next to one team or another when that happens, it will just be the hockey gods that tip it one way or another.”

Here are some other highlights from the interview:

On the biggest factor for Game 7:

Listening to Claude Julien‘s comments, what matters the most is that you embrace the opportunity. You can’t go into this thing thinking of the “what ifs” and what can happen. You have to go in and you have to embrace the chance that you have the opportunity to win a hockey game and put yourself in the Stanley Cup finals. That’s it. If you come into this game thinking about losing and what’ll happen if you lose, then you’re already done.

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