BOSTON - The Vancouver Canucks are making the most out of what little offence they've produced during the Stanley Cup.
In fact, they're the first team in NHL history to lead a best-of-seven series when scoring six goals through five games, according to Elias Sports Bureau. The Boston Bruins trail Vancouver 3-2 despite outscoring them 14-6 in the final.
"A lot of times you're not going to win games by scoring six goals in five games," Canucks captain Henrik Sedin said Saturday before flying to Boston. "We are confident playing in that situation. We can win games 1-0 and if we need to score more, we can.
"It's going be tough if we continue scoring one goal a game, but if that's what it takes, we are fine."
By now, it's a fairly well-established pattern. The Canucks have done extremely well when things are close during this playoff run — they're 11-4 in one-goal games — but are often on the losing end in games that get out of hand. They've been beaten by four or more goals on four occasions, including twice against the Bruins.
This is the first series in NHL history where a team was ahead at any point while being outscored by a greater than 2-to-1 margin.
"I know it's a bizarre stat," said Bruins coach Claude Julien. "Probably our inability to score (in Vancouver) has been the result of why we're down three games to two. ...Their goals for isn't that high, but they scored when it counted and that's why they're up in the series."
The Canucks opened the series with a 1-0 victory and pulled out a win in Game 5 by the same score on Friday night. It made Roberto Luongo the first goaltender to have two 1-0 shutouts in the Stanley Cup final since Toronto's Frank McCool did it back in 1945.
Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas has been spectacular in the series by allowing just the six goals on 171 total shots.
"We are trying," said Canucks coach Alain Vigneault. "We are doing all the right things to score more goals. But Thomas is a great goaltender."
With a chance to wrap up the series in Game 6 on Monday night, Vancouver can also achieve another rare feat. If they were to take that game by three goals or less, they would win the Stanley Cup having scored fewer goals in the playoffs than they allowed.
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With files from Jim Morris in Vancouver.
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