CHICAGO -- Patrick Kane scored the first Blackhawk hat trick in the playoffs since 1994 and helped put Chicago in the final four of the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time since 1995 here last night.
But it was the sight of Roberto Luongo shaking hands while still wearing his helmet and then cutting his post game media interview scrum short as he choked up and fought off tears which will be remembered in Canada.
Roberto Luongo gave up an incredible seven goals – seven! – as the Canucks failed to make it past the second round for the 37th time in their 39 year history and the last Canadian team in the playoffs expired.
Luongo only gave up five goals in the four game sweep against St. Louis. He had never given up seven as a Canuck and only once gave up seven, back in 2002, as a Florida Panther.
And he never choked up and had to leave a post game media scrum about to break into tears before.
"I didn't help my team-mates out tonight," said Luongo who made a brief appearance in the dressing room where the only two players who stood there to face the media firing squad were the Sedin twins.
"This is going to take a lot to get over," said the goaltender captain who didn't take his mask off when he shook hands with the Blackhawks.
"I let in seven goals. You can't be satisfied with your own performance if you let in seven goals," he said of the 30 shots he faced this night.
"I didn't help my team-mates out," repeated the goaltender captain who then choked up and said "sorry, guys."
Early in the series Vancouver coach Alain Vigneault said it.
"We can't trade scoring chances with that team."
They did this night. And it was The End.
"Every mistake we made was a scoring chance," said Henrik Sedin.
"They have three lines that are unbelievably dangerous. They have tremendous skill. It's tough," said the Swede, who along with his brother becomes an unrestricted free agent July 1 but says it's "nothing I want to think about right now."
The thinking is about how this happened to a team which could have swept this series and should have been up three games to one coming home for Game 5 in Vancouver.
"For 50 minutes of every game we played great. But for 10 minutes they seemed to score in bunches," said Henrik.
Daniel, who hadn't scored in the series until he potted a pair in this wild and woolly affair, said in the end it was simple.
"We couldn't keep up. We had the lead in games and we couldn't hold the lead. It was really frustrating."
Vigneault said it was like that all series.
"On two occasions we took the lead in the third period and couldn't hold them," he said.
"You've got to give them credit. If they can keep this team together in the salary cap era, Chicago is going to have a very good team for a very long time."
Kane, who also a big game in Game 6 to put the Calgary Flames away two weeks earlier was over the moon.
"It's a great feeling," he said.
"The crowd was unbelievable all series," he said of being able to repay the favor by winning this at home as the Hawks broke the million fan mark for the first time in their history.
Big players come up big in big games.
Jonathan Toews, Kane's co-star, also scored two in the 7-5 win.
For a fifth time in six games the Canucks managed to get the first goal of the game in the series. But the Blackhawks scored two early in the second only to watch Vancouver refuse to die. The teams traded goals to go from 3-3 to 4-4 and 5-5 before Toews and Kane finally put it away to send Chicago against either the Detroit Red Wings or the Anaheim Ducks in the Western Conference final.
"What would be better than a Wings-Blackhawk series?" Kane enthused.
