Chicago Blackhawks forward Andrew Desjardins blogged for NHL.com periodically throughout the Stanley Cup Final against the Tampa Bay Lightning. In this final edition, he explains his emotions on winning the Stanley Cup after a 2-0 win in Game 6 at United Center on Monday.

CHICAGO -- All I can think about is just taking everything in.

I'm thinking about the process that it took to get to this moment, the amount of hard work that I don't think people understand, the group coming together and pushing in one direction, the leadership of the core group that have done this and really understood what it takes to get through this and pushed the guys that have never done this in that direction.

They made sure we kept the highs and lows perfectly even the whole way, and I think that went a long way.

Chicago Blackhawks forward Andrew Desjardins will be blogging for NHL.com periodically throughout the Stanley Cup Final against the Tampa Bay Lightning. In this edition, he explains why players use soccer to warm up before games.

CHICAGO – I know a lot of you have probably seen hockey players playing soccer to get warmed up for a game, and I love doing it, but I thought I’d explain how the game works for those of you who don’t know.

I can’t say it goes as far back as the beard thing, but playing soccer before the game has become a hockey tradition. It’s one of those things that’s just been done. I did it in the Ontario Hockey League, I did it in Laredo, Texas when I played in the Central Hockey League, I did it in American Hockey League in Worcester, and I did it in San Jose. I don’t know where it came from or what the history behind it is, but it’s one of those things where it seems like every single team does it.

Chicago Blackhawks forward Andrew Desjardins will be blogging for NHL.com periodically throughout the Stanley Cup Final against the Tampa Bay Lightning. In this edition, he provides his thoughts on Chicago's 2-1 victory in Game 5.

TAMPA -- I thought that was our best game of the series.

We played a pretty sound game. After every other game of the series I could think of a bunch of things we needed to improve on, but I can't really think of one after this game.

Still, we know we can be better.

Chicago Blackhawks forward Andrew Desjardins will be blogging for NHL.com periodically throughout the Stanley Cup Final against the Tampa Bay Lightning. In this edition, he explains the Blackhawks' focus on playing well defensively and how that helped protect their lead in Game 4.

CHICAGO -- We're halfway through the series now and it's down to a best-of-3.

We didn't know much about the Lightning when the series began other than what we saw on video and the few times we get to play them in the [regular season], but we're starting to learn a lot about them.

First of all, we've realized how good of a checking team they can be and how we have to be good with the puck. We have to out-battle them. They battle hard along the walls and they're good in the gritty areas. They're not a super-big team, but they're gritty in those areas.

I can't say we're really that surprised about that. Maybe we didn't know exactly how good they were at checking, but I think the perception everyone had that this would be a big offensive series was wrong. That checking game is really important in the playoffs, and you're seeing that.

Chicago Blackhawks forward Andrew Desjardins will be blogging for NHL.com periodically throughout the Stanley Cup Final against the Tampa Bay Lightning. In this edition, he explains his passion for cooking and what he'd like to eat out of the Stanley Cup should the Blackhawks win the series.

CHICAGO -- One of the best parts of living in Chicago is the food. There is great food here.

Since we moved here after I got traded to the Blackhawks in March, my wife Mandy and I haven't been able to really go out and experience it as much as we might have wanted with our five-month old son, Ames, at home. He keeps us pretty busy.

People always ask me about the deep dish pizza, but I've only had it once. I had it at Lou Malnati's, and it was really good. You can only really have one piece of that stuff, but it was an interesting slice for sure.

We've also been to RPM Steak, we've gone to Chicago Cut Steakhouse a few times, I liked Chicago q, the barbecue place, Velvet Taco right near Tavern on Rush, and we really like going to Eataly to eat and shop for groceries.

But honestly, I'm really a home guy and I cook a lot. I do a lot of the cooking around the house. I love it. It's one of my top three passions.

Chicago Blackhawks forward Andrew Desjardins will be blogging for NHL.com periodically throughout the Stanley Cup Final against the Tampa Bay Lightning. In this edition, he explains what it's like to take the ice after scoring a goal only to allow one quickly afterward, as the Blackhawks did in the third period of Game 3.

CHICAGO -- It started off great.

I thought after they (the Lightning) came out hard at first, we had a really good first period. We did a good job getting pucks to the net with 19 shots on goal, and that was a positive to come out of it.

There were a lot of good things in that game for us. We did a good job on special teams, had a huge 5-on-3 penalty kill, got a big power-play goal. But it's a 60-minute game, and you've got to play for 60 minutes. You can't have those lapses.

One of them came after [Brandon] Saad gave us the lead 2-1 in the third and the building was going nuts.

I was sent out for the next shift, and we gave up the lead 13 seconds later [on Ondrej Palat's goal].

Obviously you don't want that to happen. Those are crucial times.

Chicago Blackhawks forward Andrew Desjardins will be blogging for NHL.com periodically throughout the Stanley Cup Final against the Tampa Bay Lightning. In this edition, he explains what it felt like for the Lightning to win Game 2 on a shot that went in off his stick.

TAMPA -- It's not the outcome that we wanted, but I think there's a few good things that we can take out of it. Then we just have to prepare. It might be a long series, so we can't get too down. It's good to be angry a little bit that we didn't come out with the win, but take some stuff out of there and build for the next game.

We're going back to Chicago, going back home, so we just have to be prepared.

But some of the things I think we can build on is I thought our puck movement was a little bit better in Game 2 than it was in Game 1. I think we had a little bit more speed through the neutral zone. We got one on the power play, which is big. In the offensive zone we had a little bit more movement, kept pucks alive a little bit more, and I thought we got around the net. We got some more dangerous shots around the net, and in the first game I didn't think there was too much around the net; we didn't create very much.

Unfortunately, I played a part on the game-winning goal by Jason Garrison, and it was just so frustrating to watch that puck go in the net. But that's hockey.

Chicago Blackhawks forward Andrew Desjardins will be blogging for NHL.com periodically throughout the Stanley Cup Final against the Tampa Bay Lightning. In this edition, he discusses what he did on a rare day off with two full days off before Game 2 at Amalie Arena on Saturday.

TAMPA -- Having two off days between games can be nice because you can split them into two separate categories.

Priority No. 1 Thursday was to kind of rest your body, get some good eats, get the right things into your body, hydrate.

But also to just sleep and rest. It's always hard to sleep after games. Every game's different, but sometimes you don't get to bed until 3 or 4 in the morning, for myself. So I try to sleep in, but it's kind of hard to sleep in sometimes. So I got up, ate breakfast, and went back to sleep.

Chicago Blackhawks forward Andrew Desjardins will be blogging for NHL.com periodically throughout the Stanley Cup Final. In this edition, he discusses Chicago's win in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final. a 2-1 victory Wednesday night in which Chicago scored two goals in a two-minute span late in the third period at Amalie Arena.

We wanted to come out with a good start.

We expected them to come out hard, and they really did. I think we stayed patient, we kept to the game plan. We did a good job doing that. We were on our heels at the beginning a bit but we stuck to that game plan, and I think that's what got us the win. We stuck to it, and we got our breaks.

Chicago Blackhawks forward Andrew Desjardins will be blogging for NHL.com periodically throughout the Stanley Cup Final.

TAMPA -- The time since we won Game 7 of the Western Conference Final against the Anaheim Ducks on Saturday was really valuable so we could get recharged.

We knew we had a few days to really get the body rested and to just prepare again mentally.

You just relax.

I didn't do too much, just stayed in the apartment and hung out with my family and spent as much time as I could with them. You've been away from your family throughout the playoffs because of the travel, days at the hotel, so it was nice to have a few days with the family.