Home team has 12-3 advantage in NHL Game 7s

BOSTON (AP) - A couple more notes before we get under way.

It’s the 16th Game 7 in the Stanley Cup finals. The home team is 12-3. Vancouver was one of the three: It lost to the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden in 1994.

The Bruins have never played a Game 7 in the Stanley Cup final.

So far this postseason, though, the Bruins have been in two, going to the limit in the first round against Montreal and in the Eastern Conference finals against Tampa Bay. (They swept the Flyers in between.)

Vancouver needed seven games to get past Chicago in the first round but then took out Nashville in six and San Jose in five.

Some good signs for the Canucks: Every game has been won by the home team so far this series, and that’s happened six times since the format went to seven games in 1939. The home team went on to win the seventh game three of the previous five times. Home teams are 17-2 in the Stanley Cup final since 2009.

Here’s colleague Greg Beacham’s pregame story on Tim Thomas to hold you over: https://goo.gl/sb7jh.

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When the Boston Red Sox won the World Series in 2004, ending an 86-year title drought, there was a total lunar eclipse that turned the full moon red in the sky.

Around Boston, fans are hoping for an astrological repeat tonight when the Bruins play the Vancouver Canucks in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals. Even those of us who don’t normally look to the heavens to get their news have to admit: It’s a strange coincidence, at the very least, that another Boston team is trying to end a championship drought during another total lunar eclipse.

Of course, who says the stars are favoring Boston?

The Bruins, an Original Six team, haven’t won it all since 1972. But Vancouver has never won the Stanley Cup since entering the NHL in 1970. So maybe the signs favor the Canucks.

We’ll find out soon. The puck drops at the Rogers Center for Game 7 a little after 5 p.m. local time. That’s 8 p.m. back East, where Boston police are bracing for potential bad behavior in case of a Bruins victory. After recent championships by the Celtics, Red Sox and Patriots, there were three fatalities and widespread vandalism. (See the AP story here: https://goo.gl/sbRwp.)

That’s also why there won’t be a viewing party at the TD Garden tonight that would have let Bruins fans watch the game on the video board; police didn’t want an extra 15,000 people gathered in one place.

One place there likely will be crowds: If the Bruins win, two Modell’s Sporting Goods stores are planning to open immediately after the game and stay open indefinitely with Stanley Cup championship hats and T-shirts.