Break down the PPs situationally and I think you'd find that Boston enjoyed its powerplays early in games when the outcome was still in doubt. Vancouver's power plays were awarded in in games that were already out of hand. When it was close, calls did not go in Vancouver's favour. Remember Bieksa taking a two hander to legs when carrying the puck? 20,000 eyes were on that and knew that was a penalty yet neither of the 2 referees called it.
National media on both sides of the border were unfairly portraying Vancouver as a bunch of divers that didn't deserve to win while Mike Milbury openly took pot shots at the Sedins on national TV.
The refereeing was a joke in that series and it is highly likely that it was related to talks that the NHL had with the officials before the game. I wouldn't doubt it if the Auger thing played into it too.
Officiating was only one of the reasons why Vancouver lost, but it should not be dismissed. It was a contributing factor for sure.
Look, I'm not trying to say the national media wasn't biased (considering Cherry's and Milbury's past employment with the Bruins, that's expected). I also agree that the standard of officiating tends to become more lenient as the season goes on, but that applies to every team. Aaron Rome vs. Johnny Boychuk was a pretty uneven standard of justice coming from the NHL discipline board.
But some posters on here are trying to claim that opponents were consistently getting more PPs than the Canucks during the 2011 playoff run. That's just revisionist BS. In the Hawks series (when MG complained) there was a PP advantage to Chicago. In the 2nd and 3rd rounds calls were close to equal. In the finals Vancouver actually got slightly more calls. Vancouver was a skilled team? Absolutely - and so were Chicago, San Jose, and Boston. Shouldn't they be drawing penalties too?
What about all the times where the Canucks benefitted from penalty calling? Shea Weber was whistled for a borderline penalty in OT, and on the ensuing PP Kesler puts the Canucks 2-1 up in the series. Ben Eager got called repeatedly to hilarious results. And then there was Sami Salo's two 5-on-3 goals in 20 seconds which was the turning point of Game 4 vs San Jose. There was really only one game where I felt the refs played a major role ... Game 6 vs Chicago, when a few Hawk penalties went uncalled late in the game, and a quick whistle nullified what could have been the series-winning goal in OT. (I think Samuelsson was right on the doorstep and Crawford didn't have control).
You brought up the issue of timeliness of PPs. But even then it doesn't really fit with the facts ...
The minute Boston went up 2-0 in Game 3, the Canucks got two PPs right after the other. They couldn't score on the first, and Marchand made Kesler, Ehrhoff, and Edler look foolish en route to a back-breaker on the second.
Game 4, Canucks get the first two PPs of the game. They waste them.
Game 7. Three minutes after Marchand's 2-0 goal, the first penalty of the game was called on ... Zdeno Chára. Not only do the Bruins have to kill a penalty, but they don't even have their best penalty killer. Result? 3-0 Boston on a Bergeron breakaway.
If you're looking for reasons the Canucks couldn't win, it should go ...
1) Injuries - Hamhuis, Samuelsson, Malhotra, H. Sedin, Kesler, Ehrhoff, Edler
2) Bruins were a great defensive team (Selke nominee, Norris nominee, Vezina winner)
3) Chiarelli built a very deep team. Even after Savard got injured, they still had 12 forwards with 10+ goals that season. That's right, every single forward from the 1st line to the 4th had double digits in goals, even Shawn Thornton. While Vancouver had better top end players, the depth wasn't there: Glass, Tambellini, and Oreskovich all played in the finals.
4) Poor goaltending on Luongo's part in 4 out of the 7 games.
5) Vigneault didn't make much of an attempt to line match or keep the Sedins away from Chara.