The drops of sweat were still on his forehead, the questions of the journalists took no end. But dennis seidenberg mastered the media marathon in the dressing room of the boston bruins just as confidently as he did the challenge on the ice beforehand.
After the decisive 1-0 home victory in the fourth game of the semifinal series against the favored pittsburgh penguins, the national ice hockey player has reached the stanley cup finals of the american professional league NHL with his team, as he did in 2011.
"It is a great satisfaction for us to be in the final again. It’s very hard to win four games in a row against a team like that," said seidenberg. The 31-year-old had the most ice time of any bruins pro at 27:34 minutes and was in the thick of things when pittsburgh vehemently pushed for the equalizer in the closing seconds.
First, captain zdeno chara, lying on the ice, stopped a shot by jewgeni malkin with his hand, thus preventing the safe 1:1. Then seidenberg blocked a slap shot by matt niskanen, and finally the outstanding bruins goalkeeper tuukka rask deflected a slap shot by jarome iginla on the final siren.
"Those were absolutely crazy closing seconds," seidenberg said. It felt like pittsburgh had ten players on the ice. But boston once again "worked super hard and won happily in the end," seidenberg said. Rask described the hectic final phase as "only crowding" in front of his home.
"You can’t see anything and there are people lying around everywhere. I just tried to make myself as rough as possible and stop the puck," the finn said. He had outplayed himself in the four games, allowing only two goals to the playoffs’ previous best offense of 47 and stopping 98.5 percent of shots.
"If you score two goals in four games, you can’t go far," criticized sidney crosby. Pittsburgh’s captain, like malkin or iginla, who joined the penguins in april, remained without a point against boston, failing time and again because of the bruins’ defense work or rask. "They’re a solid team, don’t give you anything. You have to work for everything. We did that, but unfortunately we didn’t take our chances," says crosby.
Adam mcquaid had a goal in the 46. Minute scored the only goal with a slightly deflected strike into the left corner of the goal. "We want the cup," echoed through the sold-out TD bank-garden crowd of 17,565. At the presentation ceremony as champion of the eastern conference, all bruins players love fingers off the prince of wales trophy. Finally, it is considered a bad omen for the final series, when the silver cup is touched.
Who boston will play for the stanley cup is still up in the air. In the western conference semifinals, the chicago blackhawks rode defending champion los angeles kings to a 3-1 victory and a home win on saturday to set up the final duel between the 2010 and 2011 champions.
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