Andrew Cogliano stood at his locker stall dripping with sweat, stretching his legs that cramped up somewhere around his 18th or 19th minute on the ice, if he had to guess, next to a bowl of apple slices that had been sitting out for so long, they were brown.
Clearly, those were put out before the first overtime. Or maybe was it the second? No one can remember at this point.
Cogliano, like many in the Anaheim Ducks dressing room, still was trying to process the end of Game 2 of the Western Conference Final. He still wasn't quite sure what happened, but he knew that after more than 100 minutes of hockey -- nearly two full games -- it doesn't take much to end it.
"It's a bounce," he said. "And we didn't get it."
Chicago's Marcus Kruger got the bounce in minute 102. With just under four minutes left in the third overtime, Kruger parked himself next the Ducks' goal. A puck came to the net from up near the perimeter and Ducks' goalie Frederik Andersen deflected it with the butt-end of his stick. But he didn't see Kruger there to bat in the loose puck.
The Blackhawks evened the series with a 3-2 triple-overtime win, Wednesday night in Anaheim.
"You know, what can you say? I mean, we had the puck on our stick quite a few times. We had enough posts and everything else," Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau said. "Sometimes, you know, it just goes in the other team's favor."
It felt more like a war, but in reality it was only one excruciating battle. And they'll wage another one in Chicago two days from now, Thursday at 5 p.m. PST. Although it's doubtful that any of the other games left in this best-of-7 series will last as long as this one did. This one was the longest in Blackhawks' history, Honda Center History and the longest pretty much all involved had ever played.
Neither team ever quite got into a rhythm. The once-calm Ducks lost composure in the first few minutes of the game and the once-staunch penalty kill yielded two early goals. Even after the Ducks calmed down, got out of their own way and tied the game in the second period, there was more skating and chasing than playmaking.
But as the others skated around wildly, there were two men on the Honda Center ice that managed to find zen in sea of mad: The two goalies, Andersen and Corey Crawford.
"He's a top-end goalie and that's what good teams have," Cogliano said. "They have goalies who make the saves at the right time. I think Freddie was in the same boat. The last goal, it was either going to be us or it was going to be them."
It was a chess match between the two. But even though Crawford stopped 60 shots, Andersen always seemed to have the edge. He went 99 minutes without giving up a goal and stopped a career-high 53 shots, keeping the Ducks in the game when there was little control being displayed.
"You've just got to keep thinking about the next shot, the next shot," he said. "Nothing really more to it."
But to play so spectacularly and end up with a loss, that's a tough one for a young goalie to digest.
"He played great. That's not his fault," Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf said. "That's our fault, a missed assignment. Guy is going to the net and it (the puck) hits him. It's going wide and (Kruger) makes a play. That's nothing on Freddie. He just needs to regroup and get ready to play the next one."
As demoralizing as this one was, the Ducks still feel they built up some momentum. They had control throughout most of the overtime minutes and their best chances -- three of them to be exact -- rang off the post.
Don't sleep on the Ducks in Chicago. If anything, this loss, only their second in the postseason, has only further fueled their fire.
"I don't think anyone is really giving us a lot of credit against Chicago," Cogliano said. "I think Chicago is a great team, but I think we're playing pretty good. I think we're doing a good job and it comes down to one bounce. We had 65 shots and you hit crossbars, three crossbars, and your best player gets a chance in the slot and Crawford makes a good save.
"I think it sucks, but it is what it is."
