Canucks beat Bruins, close in on title

Roberto Luongo (L) of the Vancouver Canucks celebrates with team mates Alexander Edler (C) and Ryan Kesler after defeating the Boston Bruins 1-0 in Game 5 of the 2011 NHL Stanley Cup Finals at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on Friday. (AFP

AFP/VancouverThe Vancouver Canucks edged the Boston Bruins 1-0 Friday to move within one victory of capturing the NHL’s Stanley Cup trophy for the first time. Maxim Lapierre scored on a ricochet off the back boards with 15:25 remaining and Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo stopped 31 shots in the shut-out as Vancouver took a three-games-to-two lead in the best-of-seven Stanley Cup Final. Vancouver will try to wrap up the title in game six in Boston tomorrow. For Luongo, the shutout was a redemption after he was pulled from his last game after giving up 12 goals in less than four periods in two blow-out defeats in Boston. “(Luongo) knows that we believe in him,” Vancouver forward Alex Burrows said. “He’s unreal. We have so much confidence in him, and he doesn’t listen to what people outside this locker room say. We know he’s the best goalie in the league.” An Olympic champion with Canada, Luongo was rarely spectacular, but he still outshone Boston goalie Tim Thomas, whose teammates have delivered just two goals of support in three contests in Vancouver. “There was something about him before the game,” Vancouver defenseman Kevin Bieksa, who set up the only goal of the contest, said of Luongo. “He just seemed so comfortable, so confident. He was vocal, and usually he’s not a vocal guy. We thought it would be something special.” Offense was in short supply for both teams on Friday. The first two periods were scoreless. Both Thomas and Luongo excelled and Boston came up empty on four power plays. Lapierre and Bieksa finally teamed up for a goal, Bieksa sending a long shot wide of the goal that Thomas moved to play. The puck bounced off the back boards straight to Lapierre, who slotted it behind Thomas. “I hope I was trying to miss the net, because I missed it by about 8 feet,” Bieksa said. “I didn’t have a real good angle to the net, so I just put it up there and got a good bounce.” Lapierre, a late-season acquisition, is not known as a scorer and had just six regular-season goals for Montreal, Anaheim and Vancouver. “Those are usually the kind of goals that go in when no one is scoring,” Thomas said. “A lot of times it’s going to be that fluke one off the boards, and Lapierre didn’t even get the shot off clean. If he got the shot off clean, I would have been able to read it better and would have had a better chance at it.” Not only are the Canucks trying to win the Stanley Cup for the first time, they are trying to bring the NHL crown to a Canadian-based team for the first time since Montreal won it all in 1993. So far the home team has won every game in the series, and if the Canucks can’t seal the victory in Boston they’ll get a chance at home in game seven on Wednesday. While the Bruins have their backs against the wall, Boston coach Claude Julien insisted they could still win the last two—including a potential game seven in Vancouver. “We’ve been through this, I don’t know how many times,” Julien said. “We’re not a team that’s done anything the easy way, so in a way, it’s not a surprise we’re here. “I think we’ve been a decent road team for most of the season, and right now, what we have to do is go back home and create a game seven so we get another shot at them here.”