Talk about a “Luoooong” night for Vancouver Canucks fans. For Boston Bruins fans though, there couldn’t have been a better way to bounce back from a pair of disappointing losses in Games 1 and 2 of the Stanley Cup Final. On home ice, Boston erupted for eight goals – all against Vancouver netminder Roberto Luongo – in a stunning thrashing of the visiting favorites. The pre-game itself features more storylines than any sports section could handle, and by the final whistle, about a dozen more were added to the lengthening list.

In the first period, Boston’s Nathan Horton was erased by Aaron Rome – a no-name fourth liner who laid out Horton with a late hit and received a game misconduct while Horton was sent to the hospital. Boston couldn’t score on the ensuing major, but did score two power play and two shorthanded goals in the game. Boston provided pretty much all of the rest of the aggressiveness. Even Tim Thomas – who stopped 40 shots – laid a hit on a Sedin to take him out of the play.

The big game stopper came in the third period though, when a huge battle broke out, leading to 51 of the game’s 145 penalty minutes, including ejections for all of Alex Burrows, Ryan Kesler, Milan Lucic and Dennis Seidenberg. Emotions boiled over as at that point, the game was just about finished. If nothing else, it gave the NHL front office a lot of paperwork for Tuesday and set the stage for a lot of pending retaliation in Game 4.

Luongo himself was kept in net by Canucks head coach Alain Vigneault for the entire 60 minutes. A lot of people were left scratching their heads over why Luongo wasn’t pulled, especially after the fifth Boston goal midway through the third period to make the score 5-0 at the time. The game was clearly over, and so should have been Luongo’s night. Instead, the Canucks get to hang their heads for the next couple days and wonder what the heck happened. After the beating they took, it’ll be hard to remember they still have a 2-1 series lead.