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Is there a team in the National Hockey League with more ties to the rest of the league than the Boston Bruins? Maybe that’s a Boston-centric way of looking at things, but it certainly felt like there was an ex-Bruin here, there, and everywhere you looked in the 2016 Stanley Cup Playoffs. And the Stanley Cup Final, with
Joe Thornton and the San Jose Sharks squared up with
Phil Kessel and the Pittsburgh Penguins (and don’t forget head coach
Mike Sullivan), is no exception.
(Hell, you can even make the case that
Logan Couture, selected
one pick after the Bruins nabbed
Zach Hamill in 2007, should have a tie to the Black and Gold as well, but I can’t do that tonight. Or ever. Nor should you. Nobody deserves that sort of mental anguish.)
In one corner, there’s Thornton. Almost 11 years removed from his days in a Boston sweater -- does it feel that long ago to you? Because it doesn’t feel that long ago to me -- the grizzled (and boy that’s an understatement when you look at the live animal currently living on Thornton’s mug) veteran is on hockey’s biggest stage for the first time in his illustrious, nearly two-decade long career.
In the other corner, at least on the ice, there’s Kessel. A shy kid that never quite came into his own in Boston, at least in the media’s viewpoint, though Kessel’s last year in Boston came with a team-high 36 goals (yeah, I don’t think he was too shy then), Kessel has thrived in a third-line role with Pittsburgh as the key piece of the ‘HBK’ Line with Carl Hagelin and center Nick Bonino. It’s his first time here, too.
It’s entirely too easy to look at both players, think of their exits out of the Hub, and chalk this Final up as a “Well, can they both lose?” sort of thing. But your bitterness -- at least with both of these players exiting town before the 2011 Stanley Cup victory -- should be long subsided by now. (For the sake of your own mental health, I’d hope.) And more importantly, you should be able to enjoy this Final.
Especially if Game 1 is a teaser for what the rest of this series will be like.
A friend brought it up and I couldn’t help but agree that this felt a lot like the Game 1 contest between the Bruins and Vancouver Canucks back in 2011, too. There were stretches where the Penguins flatout dominated, but the Sharks hung around until Pittsburgh came through with a late-game dagger. It really did feel like this game was a feeling out process for both teams, the Sharks in particular, who really struggled to adapt to the Pens’ tenacious puck-pursuit game, but it got better with each minute.
But the question, at least in terms of Boston ties (Hey, I’m one of those), is who are you pulling for?
It’s funny in a way, that the 2016 Stanley Cup Final has come down to a showdown of sorts between Thornton and Sullivan. These were the two scapegoated victims of a disastrous 2005-06 season in Boston. Thornton, with a bundle of garbage for linemates, was dealt to San Jose to accelerate the B’s rebuild. Sullivan, who struggled to coach aforementioned bundle of garbage, was fired at the end of the season. And if you think it was either of these guys’ fault, take a look at what happened back then.
The Bruins, smarter than everybody else between work stoppages, let the following key players walk as free agents between 2004 and the start of the 2005-06 season: Mike Knuble, Brian Rolston, Michael Nylander, Sergei Gonchar, Martin Lapointe. They were replaced by: Shawn McEachern, ‘Ankles’ Alexei Zhamnov, Dave Scatchard, and somebody who pretended to be defenseman Brian Leetch. And that’s without mentioning that one of the long good players kept from that 2003-04, Thornton, was shipped out by the end of November for Wayne Primeau, Brad Stuart, and Marco Sturm. What a team. Sullivan’s only real shortcoming that year was finishing with the third-worst record in the East, not the worst.
The Kessel story is a little bit different. In fact, the Bruins were quite competitive, dare you say too competitive, and there wasn’t enough money to sign Kessel to anything but a bridge deal. The Bruins tried to make it happen, too, with offseason moves such as trading veteran ‘core guy’ Aaron Ward to Carolina. Kessel didn’t budge. He was ultimately moved to Toronto for a three-pick return that was straight-up dynamite for the B’s until they moved
Tyler Seguin (2nd overall, 2010),
Jared Knight (32nd overall, 2010), and
Dougie Hamilton (9th overall, 2011) out of town.
Zero of those picks, nor Kessel, are here in 2016, not even seven full years after the trade. That’s crazy.
Kessel paid for his sins with what were probably the most trying years of his hockey career -- a six-year stint in Toronto that came with constant rebuilds and a playoff choke like no other against, you guessed it, his former club -- before a trade to the Promised Land of Pittsburgh last summer.
Thornton has paid the price with year after year of postseason failure in San Jose.
And Sullivan spent more time next to the seemingly always enraged John Tortorella on a bench as one of his assistant coaches for longer than any one person is medically advised to do so, so there’s that.
But, I have to go with Thornton.
Listen, if you’re
still bothered by the fact that Thornton struggled to get the job done in the postseason during his time in Boston (No. 19 had 18 points in 35 playoff games with the Bruins) and let it honestly make you legitimately unappreciative of what he’s done in his career and is still doing at age 36, I don’t know what to tell you. In fact, nobody knows what to tell you, ‘cause you’re a bitter person.
At this point in his career, there’s no denying it, Thornton has put in the time to earn his moment. He’s rapidly approaching Bourque-esque status in terms of the production over the course of a career while never having lifted hockey’s Holy Grail. It’d be nice to see Joe get this moment at least once. In a cap world with expansion around the corner, and with the Pacific Division expected to load up/improve this summer, this might honestly be his last legitimate crack at getting the job done for the Sharks.
Plus, even with Matt Cooke gone and though Ulf Samuelsson is long gone, it’s still…
Pittsburgh.
That’s reason enough for me.
Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, has been a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter since 2013, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.
Boston Bruins Blogger •Bruins Feature Columnist • 
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