McQuaid excited to be heading home all even

Boston Bruins defenseman Adam McQuaid is already a veteran of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, including winning a Stanley Cup title with the Bruins in 2011 and approaching 50 postseason games for his career before his 27th birthday.This postseason, McQuaid, 26, has been a staple of Boston's third defensive pairing, providing a shut-down presence for Claude Julien. In the Eastern Conference Final, McQuaid scored the series-winning goal in a stunning four-game sweep of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

McQuaid has been gracious enough to agree to keep a player blog that will appear on NHL.com throughout the Stanley Cup Final.

In his latest installment, he talks about Boston's thrilling 2-1 victory in overtime of Game 2, his decision to give forward Chris Kelly the team jacket as player of the game and heading back to Boston for the next two games in this best-of-7 series.

Any win is a wonderful win, especially after losing the first one -- obviously. Being tied 1-1 is a better situation than being down 2-0.  Again, a game that goes to overtime and anything can happen, either team can win.  I think Tuukka [Rask] really stood on his head in the first period and really kept us in the game and gave us a chance to win.

I also got to give the team jacket away after the game. It's definitely more fun giving it to somebody else than getting it. It's difficult, though, sometimes to pick one guy. This time of year, you don't win games without everybody chipping in and having a role. Chris is a guy that is a leader on our team and does a lot of the little things that maybe go unnoticed.  Not unnoticed to us, but he's been kind of snake bitten on the score sheet. He's been doing a lot of the little things, killing penalties, blocking shots and he is a leader on and off the ice for us. It was nice to see him get that goal. It was a big goal for us to get us back in the game. It was a pleasure to be able to hand it off to him and give a little speech.

It was also nice to visit with my brother Chad, who was here. He stayed with a family that lives in Chicago but is originally from Prince Edward Island, so they knew my uncles growing up. That is the way it is back home -- people open their homes in those kind of situations. It was really nice for them to do that and I was glad I got the opportunity to meet them.

Now it's going to be nice to go home and get back to playing in front of our fans. It's always exciting playing at home -- especially at this point. It's going to be loud and it's going to be exciting and I know we are all looking forward to it.

Thanks for reading and we'll see you in Boston on Sunday!