If the Vancouver Canucks didn't try to out-Bruins the B's, they very well may have hoisted the Stanley Cup trophy 10 years ago.
That's according to Milan Lucic, who was right there in the middle of it all when Boston took down Vancouver in 2011. The former Bruins forward looked back on the series with NBC Sports Boston's "The Camera Guys" and explained how the Canucks' approach ultimately doomed them.
Lucic reminisces on 2011 Bruins Cup win, $156K Foxwoods bar tab
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Boston sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
"It's funny, because we started off Game 1 in that first period, we went in and just kind of wanted to play," Lucic told Glenn and Moose. "They were the ones that kind of brought the fight to us because they I think were trying to prove something that, 'Were facing the big, bad Bruins, we need to show that you're not gonna bully us.' They were starting every scrum, [Patrice Bergeron] gets bit by [Alex] Burrows, [Dan] Hamhuis hip checks me. ...
"If anything, it was almost like they were just trying to show that they weren't going to be bullied by being bullies. They woke up the big, bad Bruins. If you ask me, if they would have kept the series into just what Chicago did to us -- Chicago in 2013, they didn't engage at all. They just wanted to keep it hockey. I feel like if the Canucks did that, they would've given themselves a better chance to beat us."
The Canucks jumped out to a 2-0 series lead before the Bruins exploded for eight goals in an 8-1 Game 3 win at TD Garden. They'd ride that momentum for the remainder of the series, only falling 1-0 in Game 5 before capping their title run off with a 4-0 Game 7 win in Vancouver.
Lucic will never forget the intensity of the hard-fought series and what it was like to experience it in front of a rowdy Boston crowd.
Boston Bruins
"It just goes to show how lucky you are to be a part of something like that in a place like Boston," Lucic said. "The sports fans there are so passionate, they care so much about all their sports teams."
Hear everything Lucic had to say in the video above, and watch the full interview on YouTube.