The Bruins swept the St. Louis Blues in four games to win their first championship since 1941.

The 1970 Stanley Cup Finals had one of the most dramatic finishes in all of sports, immortalized by the picture of Bobby Orr flying through the air after firing a shot past goaltender Glenn Hall, 40 seconds into overtime to give the Bruins a 4-3 clinching victory.

Esposito scored 43 goals and added 56 assists that season but wasn't on the ice for the winning goal.

"No, I was on the bench and I got so excited, I slipped getting up, hit my face on the boards and needed four stitches to close the cut," Esposito said, laughing while recalling the moment.

"I think my excitement was not so much in winning the Stanley Cup but in feeling a sense of relief that we wouldn't have to go back to St. Louis," Esposito said. "It had been a long season, we knew we were going to beat St. Louis in the series and I just felt like the sooner the better."

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Esposito said he knows he's different than a lot of hockey players when it comes to the dream of winning a Stanley Cup. For him, considering the difficulty of the task, the greatest pleasure and satisfaction came from simply making an NHL lineup.

"I honestly don't think I ever dreamed of winning the Stanley Cup as a kid. That's probably because I didn't even make a junior team until I was 19," Esposito said. "My dream while I was growing up was to be a hockey player in the National Hockey League. That's all I wanted to do. My enjoyment in hockey was in the playing of the game. I just loved it that I was playing hockey in the NHL."

Esposito said he encountered doubts at every level until his career blossomed with the Bruins.

"I had a meeting with my guidance counselor when I was about 14 and he asked me what I wanted to do in life, you know, a career," Esposito recalled. "I told him I wanted to play hockey in the NHL. He said, "Yeah, yeah, fine, but what do you really want to do?" You know, he was trying to get me to say doctor or lawyer or some other profession but I told him I was going to make the NHL. "So, he called in my Dad, Pat, who was really a great man. I really looked up to my father," Esposito continued. "The guy says to my Dad, 'He's not making any plans, all he says is he wants to be a hockey player,' and my Dad says, 'So?' I loved him for that."

Stanley Cup Multimedia Ray Bourque literally gives Phil Esposito the #7 off his back in a touching ceremony at Boston Garden... Watch now

Esposito lacked the necessary foot speed and perhaps the needed intensity as a teenager. He finally made his hometown Sault Ste. Marie Thunderbirds in 1961 and played for Syracuse in the old Eastern Professional Hockey League the following season. He was traded to the St. Louis Braves of the old Central Professional Hockey League midway through the season and showed steady progress there that year and the next.

He was brought up to the Chicago Black Hawks during the 1963-64 and spent most of the next four seasons as the center responsible for setting up Bobby Hull's scoring chances.

After he failed to score a point in the 1967 Stanley Cup playoffs against Toronto, the Blackhawks traded Esposito to the Boston Bruins. Esposito scored 459 goals over nine seasons in Boston, including his phenomenal 1971-72 season when he amassed 76 goals and 76 assists for 152 points.

The Orr-Esposito years were phenomenal for the Bruins as the superstars pushed each other and their teammates to new offensive heights.

There has never been a successor to Esposito in style of play. The 6-foot-1, 225-pound, left-hand shooting center would park himself in front of the opponent's goalie, resist tremendous punishment from defensemen and convert feeds from linemates Ken Hodge and Wayne Cashman to reach scoring levels never before seen.

With his broad shoulders and tremendous reach, Esposito could snap rebounds past goalies that other players could never get to.

All over Boston, signs sprang up that read, "Jesus saves, but Esposito scores on the rebound." It was irreverent but it showed the hold "the big guy" and his teammates had on Boston.

Esposito remembers the joy and pride he felt while sharing his Stanley Cup-winning moment with his father, a burly steelworker, in the Bruins locker room.

"We were just having a great time, goofing around, the whole team, and then they decided they'd throw the fathers in the shower," Esposito said. "Not my dad, they couldn't move him because he went about 265 and he was rugged. They tossed Kenny Hodge's dad, though, and a couple of others."

Esposito has remained close friends with former Bruins captain Ray Bourque, now a member of the Colorado Avalanche, who is trying to win his first Stanley Cup after 22 years in the NHL. One of the sport's great moments occurred Dec. 7, 1987 when the Bruins retired Esposito's No. 7.

Bourque, who had been wearing the number, stripped off his jersey to reveal his new No. 77, and handed the No. 7 jersey to Esposito as the crowd in Boston Garden drowned them in cheers.

Pointing at his 1972 Stanley Cup ring, his second, Esposito said, "I told Ray, 'This is what you're playing for. You'll spend the money right away but you'll always have this. Of course, he's making millions and I played for $80,000 a year, but, hey."