The best thing about winning the Stanley Cup again is you get to enjoy it even more, because you know what it’s like. You’ve been through the process, you know what to expect and you just get to cherish the moments. Even with my kids now, everything is that much better. I’m just trying to take it all in.
Coach Paul Maurice always says, “We win, or we learn,” and today was a big learning point from Game 4, when we went up 3-0 in the first period and took our foot off the gas in that overtime loss to Edmonton. To a man, you should’ve heard the bench. If it looked like someone was coming off it, the whole bench was yelling, ‘Go! Go! Go!’ That’s what makes us successful and that’s what we stuck to. I just thought it was an incredible effort from start to finish. We took it TV timeout to TV timeout, and all we were focused on was win until the next TV timeout. We did a great job of that.
We had some additions at the NHL Trade Deadline, including Brad Marchand and Seth Jones, who were big and blended in great with our group. That’s because of our leadership. It’s just, everyone feels welcome. I remember coming in last year and it was the same thing. You’re able to come to the locker room and you feel like you’ve been there for years.
It’s an unbelievable group and we had unbelievable additions coming in. We needed that to give us a little bit of life, to give us that little extra bit of juice and everyone who came in did a great job. It was just a complete team effort.
The final seconds of this one when we were up 5-1 were a lot less stressful than last year when we were holding on to a 2-1 lead in Game 7. But no, you’ve got to enjoy it, right? You’ve got to look to the crowd and take it all in and it’s just adding to the memories.
As far as the offseason, it’s funny. Guys are already going through talks, we were all going around and it’s like, everyone’s already thinking about their Cup Day. We know what to expect, we know what’s coming and it’s going to be a fun summer again.
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