Vancouver Canucks win Game 1 of Stanley Cup Finals on last-minute goal

Story Milestone 7 of 45

Vancouver Canucks win Game 1 of Stanley Cup Finals on last-minute goal

Staff report Sporting News

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It took the Vancouver Canucks more than 59 minutes, but they scored the first goal of the Stanley Cup Finals. A little more than 18 seconds later, they had a 1-0 series lead over the Boston Bruins.

Raffi Torres beat Bruins goalie Tim Thomas with 18.5 seconds left in regulation, scoring the only goal of the game and helping his team strike first in the series.

Vancouver Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo shut out the Boston Bruins in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals. (AP Photo)

Thomas had stopped the first 33 shots he faced.

Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo was also stellar, stopping all 36 of the Bruins' shots.

"I thought we were going to play all night the way it was going," Luongo said. "It was an exciting way to start the series. It was such a close game. It could've gone either way,a flip of the coin."

Torres' goal came on a feed from Jannik Hansen, who got Thomas out of position before passing the puck to Torres. Thomas couldn't slide to his right quick enough to stop Torres' shot.

"I heard Raffi yelling," Hansen said with a grin afterwards. "It was easy to hear him."

The play was set up by Vancouver center Ryan Kesler, who stayed onside at the Boston blue line -- barely -- before sending the puck to Hansen.

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"It's a nice goal by them," Boston coach Claude Julien said. "I thought for the first two periods we played a pretty even game. In the third, we just seemed to lack some energy and lost our legs. They just seemed to come at us pretty hard. They kind of took the game over in the third period and obviously found a way to win it with a late goal."

A little more than five minutes before Torres' goal, Alex Edler rang a shot off the post.

The game featured 13 penalties, all called in the first two periods, but neither team was able to cash in on a power-play goal -- both Vancouver and Boston went 0-for-6 with the man advantage.

The Bruins struggles continued as they failed to cash in on a four-minute power play that came from Daniel Sedin's high stick on Zdeno Chara, just over four minutes into the game. Boston recorded nine shots during that power play but failed to score.

No penalty drew more attention than the double minor earned by Canucks center Alex Burrows, who appeared to bite Bruins center Patrice Bergeron's finger in a scrum at the end of the first period, but Boston, of course, failed to cash in on two-man advantage to open the second period. Burrows' actions lead to a suspension.

"Oh yeah, he did. He cut me a little bit on my finger," said Bergeron, whose right index finger was wrapped in a small bandage. "One of his teeth caught under my nail. We just disinfected it and I'm going to take some antibiotics just to make sure. Obviously, it's not that bad but I don't want to take any risks."

Bergeron later added, "I'm not going to be here complaining about it. I'll let the league do their job, but he sure did."

Canucks defenseman Dan Hamhuis left Game 1 four minutes into the second period after throwing a low hit that sent Boston forward Milan Lucic spinning head over heels.

Hamhuis dropped to the ice himself after it appeared he took Lucic's knee in the midsection as he made the hit. He also took a couple of shots from Bruins forward David Krejci, who was penalized for cross-checking, as a scrum broke out around him after the hit.

Right before the scrum, it appeared that a player from the Bruins' bench may have squirted water at Humhuis as he was skating near the bench.

After the game, Canucks coach Alain Vigneault said that Hamhuis is day-to-day, but did not give specifics of the injury.

Vancouver has now won all four Game 1's it has played this postseason.

The series continues with Game 2 at 8 p.m. on Saturday night in Vancouver.

Next: Game 1 notes: Hamhuis' injury taxes Canucks' defense >

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