Chicago v Boston 3-2 - Game 6 - Chicago
Blackhawks center Dave
Bolland scored the goal of his childhood dreams Monday night. It
delivered him, and the Blackhawks, the Stanley Cup. Bolland's goal
with 58.3 seconds remaining in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final
allowed the Blackhawks to complete a historic comeback and take a 3-2
decision against the stunned Boston
Bruins at TD Garden. Chicago's Bryan
Bickell had tied the game 17 seconds earlier with an
extra-attacker goal. Bolland had run through this exact moment in his
mind as a kid playing hockey back home in Etobicoke, Ontario. He
played on the street, on ponds, at Mimico Arena and other buildings
across the Southern Ontario region, and every once in a while he
would dream about scoring the Stanley Cup-clinching goal in front of
thousands of people. Boston left wing Milan
Lucic had scored the go-ahead goal with 7:49 remaining in the
third, but Bickell scored the tying goal off a one-timer from the
slot with 1:16 to play. Less than 18 seconds later, Bolland cashed in
from the left post before tossing his gloves in a wild celebration
although there was still almost a minute to play. After becoming the
first team in NHL history to earn at least one point in its first 24
regular-season games, Chicago is now the first team in the salary-cap
era to win the Stanley Cup twice. The Blackhawks are also the first
team since the 1991 Pittsburgh Penguins to win the Cup in six games
when they trailed 2-1 after Game 3. Prior to 2010, when the
Blackhawks beat the Philadelphia Flyers in Game 6 to win the Stanley
Cup, the last time Chicago celebrated as hockey's championship city
was in 1961, when legends Stan Mikita and Bobby Hull were A-list
celebrities around town. Now they're ambassadors for a team that
could be developing into a modern-day dynasty. For a while it looked
like Lucic's goal, a shot from the slot off a behind-the-net feed
from David
Krejci, would hold up, especially after Chicago had a power-play
opportunity that yielded nothing and ended with less than four
minutes to play.
But the Blackhawks pushed and pinched. They got
the puck deep and won the battles for it. They outworked the Bruins
and that work paid dividends when Jonathan
Toews fired a pass from the left corner to set up Bickell for a
one-timer from the slot that he'll never forget. Bickell blasted it
through Boston goalie Tuukka
Rask's five hole, setting off a celebration in the corner that
was filled with as much excitement as relief. Another 76 seconds of
scoreless hockey would have sent these teams to overtime for the
fourth time in this best-of-7 series. The Blackhawks had other ideas.
Bolland made sure of it, scoring from the left post after Johnny
Oduya's shot from the left point clanked off that post. The
Bruins couldn't believe it. They thought they had Game 6 won, much in
the same way the Toronto Maple Leafs thought they had won Game 7 of
the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals on May 13. Boston made the
impossible become possible that night inside TD Garden, coming back
from three goals down in the final 10 minutes to win in overtime.
They experienced the other side of that experience Monday night.
Boychuk later admitted he was feeling "total
shock." They were feeling the same thing on the Chicago side.
Some of the Blackhawks were even mentally preparing to go back to
Chicago without the Cup to play a Game 7 at United Center on
Wednesday. Toews said he was trying to fight off the emotional low as
the scoreboard clock kept ticking with the Bruins leading 2-1.
Chicago defenseman Brent
Seabrook said he didn't even know Bolland's shot went into the
net because he was on the ice when Bickell scored and was trying to
catch his breath, thinking maybe he'd get another shift before what
seemed like an inevitable overtime. History changed in less than 18
seconds Monday night. Dreams became reality.
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