Posted by Scott Burnside
RALEIGH, N.C. -- Brothers Eric (Carolina) and Jordan (Pittsburgh) Staal hugged briefly as the two teams shook hands at the end of the series.
"I said, 'You know you had a great series' and he just said, 'Good luck and get it next series,'" Jordan said.
He expects Eric will be cheering for him just as Jordan said he would be cheering for his brother if the series had gone the other way.
The Carolina forward knows something about this journey, having won a Cup with the Canes in 2006.
"When you get this far, you want to make sure you're lifting that trophy over your head at the end of it," Eric said.
Don't blame Ward
People will point to netminder Cam Ward's ghastly misplay of a knuckleball shot that ricocheted off defenseman Anton Babchuk's stick with 1:29 left in the first period that gave the Pens a 2-1 lead as a turning point in Game 4. But while Ward didn't have a great series (he allowed 17 goals), he didn't have a lot of help.
"I just lost sight of it for a split second. That's it, really," Ward said of the Talbot goal. "A bad break, a fluke goal that happened. I could sit here and, yeah, I wish I could take all them back, but we all tried in here and can be proud of the fact that we got this far. But we're never going to be satisfied just knowing how close that we really were to the ultimate prize. It definitely stings right now."
Looking for a little symmetry to the proceedings?
The last team to go to back-to-back Stanley Cup finals with different coaches was the Pittsburgh Penguins. They won a Stanley Cup in 1991 with Bob Johnson behind the bench and then, after he lost his battle with cancer in November 1991, Scotty Bowman took over and guided the Pens to a second straight Cup victory the following spring.
The previous time it happened was in 1968, when the legendary Toe Blake retired after guiding the Montreal Canadiens to the Cup, and Claude Ruel led the Habs to another win in the spring of 1969.
No hard feelings
Always classy, Carolina GM Jim Rutherford waited outside the hallway to the Pittsburgh locker room after the game to congratulate his counterpart Ray Shero.
ESPN.com Stanley Cup playoffs blog
