As the Vancouver Canucks head into their first playoff game since the 2011 riot, a Good Samaritan who tried stop the chaos before it got out of hand says he's confident history will not repeat itself.

Bert Easterbrook was in front of the Canada Post building on Georgia Street when the first car was set ablaze following the Canucks' crushing Game 7 loss to the Boston Bruins. He told CTV News that he felt compelled to act when he saw the crowd target a nearby truck.

"You could tell that this was the chance to actually stop the momentum before it got started. The first vehicle, they had managed to get the fire out, but if the second vehicle went up, I knew that was going to be the second domino that would get things going," he said.

Easterbrook tried to calm the mob down, but it wasn't working. Someone kept throwing burning newspaper into the truck, and Easterbrook kept throwing it out, causing burns to his hand.

After a few tosses, he decided enough was enough. When Easterbrook saw the rioter toss the flaming paper yet again, he hit him.

The crowd turned on Easterbrook.

"They were stomping on my spine, stomping on the back of my head," he said.

Police eventually moved in and Easterbrook walked away, bleeding from the head. He felt that by then, a full-blown riot was inevitable.

"I knew that the momentum had already built, and either the cops were going to be able to deal with it, or they weren't. At that point my presence was not going to do anything to help the situation," he said.

Easterbrook knew first hand the damage out-of-control rioters could do in Vancouver. He was just 14 in 1994, and was downtown when the first Stanley Cup riot broke out.

"It was terrifying. It was easily the scariest experience of my life," he said.

But even after being a witness to two playoff riots, Easterbrook says he's confident that things will not spiral out of control again this year. He prefers to look at the positive sides of the 2011 riot: the dozens of people who stood up to the mob and the hundreds more who turned up downtown the next day to clean things up.

"It's moments like that that shine and show that we are a very, very honourable city with really good people. Sure in the moment, people can act stupid, but every type can stand up and do what's right," he said.

Easterbrook is hopeful that the Canucks will make it to the finals once again, but says that no matter what, he plans to return downtown to celebrate.

With a report from CTV British Columbia's Rob Brown