The seventh game of the Stanley Cup Finals is like getting the perfect Christmas present: It seems like the big day takes forever to get there, but when it does, it's well worth the wait.

Of course, Christmas comes once every year. A final-round series that goes the maximum seven games comes along a lot less often. Since the NHL expanded from the Original Six teams in 1967, the championship round has gone the distance just five times. If the Finals are really the NHL's two best teams facing off for the championship, it seems logical that there would be more than five seven-game finals in a span of more than 35 years --after all, baseball's World Series has gone the distance 14 times in the same span.

But baseball has just eight teams in the postseason and only two rounds of playoffs before the World Series, so there's a much smaller likelihood of upsets in the early rounds. In contrast, with three rounds and potentially 21 games to play just to get to the finals, at least one of the teams is often worn out from the journey.

"Just getting to the Finals is a grueling trip," says now-retired New Jersey Devils defenseman Ken Daneyko, whose team lost its bid to repeat as champions in 2001 in a seven-game final against Colorado, but who went out a winner two years later when the Devils outlasted the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in 2003. "You've got to win three seven-game series just to get there, and there are a lot of Game 7s within the conference. By the time you get to the Stanley Cup Finals, one of the teams is often worn down. The other team often has a little more juice left in the tank than the other. That's why the finals usually don't go to seven games."

Upsets are often the order of the day in the early rounds, where a team that hasn't had a good regular season can atone for six months of struggles with two weeks of brilliance; conversely, regular-season success means nothing in the postseason except the chance to open at home and play a seventh game in your own building.

"Very often, you get an unexpected team against an 'expected' team in the finals," says Neil Smith, whose 1994 New York Rangers had to go seven games in the final before beating Vancouver and ending their 54-year championship drought. "A lot of times, through attrition, or injuries, or a bad bounce, one of the favorites will get knocked out early. That leaves one clear-cut favorite, and that team usually wins in short order."

Of the five finals that have gone the distance since expansion, only two (1987 and 2001) have matched the regular-season conference champs. Two others matched one conference winner with a second- or third-place finisher from the other conference, while the Devils, second in the East in 2003, met the surprising Mighty Ducks, who finished seventh overall, but upset Detroit and Dallas on the way to the Finals.

"There should be more," says Ron Hextall, whose goaltending carried the 1987 Philadelphia Flyers to the limit against Edmonton before the Oilers won the Cup, "In theory, you've got the best teams in the sport. It's the pinnacle of the game. I wish there were more."

1971: Montreal's Longshot Victory

In Game 7 of the 1971 Finals, Jacques Lemaire scored one of the most memorable goals in Playoff history against the Chicago Blackhawks.

Jacques Lemaire is so well known for his defensive style of coaching that it's easy to forget he had one of the NHL's most feared shots during his playing days. But for all his brilliance, his best-remembered goal is a shot that should never have gone in. In Game 7 of the 1971 finals, the Chicago Blackhawks led 2-0 late in the second period and appeared to have the game in hand until Lemaire teed up a shot from center ice late in the second period.

"The biggest thing I remember was that Jacques Lemaire's goal from the red line," says Jacques Laperriere, then a Montreal defenseman and now an assistant coach with the New Jersey Devils. "After that, the momentum switched to our side."

The fact that the Canadiens were even in the finals was remarkable. They had finished third in the Eastern Conference, which under the playoff setup at the time meant a first-round showdown with the defending champion Boston Bruins, who had set NHL scoring records in 1970-71 thanks to the play of Phil Esposito and Bobby Orr. In addition, the Canadiens had taken the goaltending job away from Rogie Vachon and entrusted it to a kid from Cornell named Ken Dryden, who had only a handful of NHL games under his belt when the postseason began.

But Dryden staved off the Bruins' record-setting offense and the Canadiens upset Boston in seven games, then beat Minnesota in six to earn a showdown with Chicago, the Western champion. The teams split the first four games before Chicago moved within a game of the Cup by capturing Game 5. But back at the Forum, the Canadiens rallied for a 4-3 victory to push the finals to a seventh game for the first time since 1965.

The prospect of having to win the Cup at Chicago Stadium, perhaps the most hostile arena in the NHL, didn't faze Laperriere or his teammates.

"When you reach that point, there's only one thing that matters," he says. "You've got to go out and do the job -- win. You don't think about being nervous. You just focus on what you have to do."

For most of the first two periods, the only thing the Canadiens were able to focus on was the "0" under their name on the scoreboard. Then Lemaire, owner of one of the hardest slap shots in the NHL, came out of his own zone and ripped a shot from center ice.

"It must have dropped six inches," Chicago center Stan Mikita remembered nearly 30 years later. "[Goaltender] Tony [Esposito] was notorious for not being able to see the puck from long distances. I was in the [penalty] box on that end when he took the shot -- I might have had a better view than Tony."

The goal stunned the Blackhawks and gave the Canadiens new life. Henri Richard scored before the period ended to tie the score, then connected again 2:34 into the final period to put Montreal ahead. Dryden held off the Blackhawks the rest of the way to give the Canadiens their third Cup in four years.

Even Laperriere, whose resume includes eight Stanley Cups, admits that the 1971 Cup was special.

"When you win that first Cup, you say ‘I'll remember this one for the rest of my life,'" he says. "I've been through eight, and this seems like the best"

There's nothing in hockey that can match the win-or-go-home stakes of Game 7 in a Stanley Cup final. But Laperriere says that for the Canadiens, whose fans were used to winning championships, losing was not an option.

"In Montreal, the only thing we thought about was winning," he says. "The only thing we talked about was winning. The only word we knew was winning. Winning was a religion in Montreal. We never thought about losing."

1987: The Wrong Cup

"Winning the Conn Smythe meant nothing at the time," former Flyer goalie Ron Hextall, who was voted Playoff MVP in 1987, said. "The loss was so disheartening -- I still think about it. I look back on it now and I'm proud of winning the Smythe, but I'd take the other Cup ahead of that one."

The pain of carrying the Conn Smythe Trophy has lingered for Ron Hextall.

It's not that he has anything against being named playoff MVP. It's just that the Philadelphia Flyers goaltender left the ice after Game 7 of the 1987 Finals without the trophy he really wanted. The rookie goaltender earned the Conn Smythe as the most valuable player in the championship round for his heroics against Edmonton. But the Oilers went home with the big prize -- the Stanley Cup.

Hextall still feels the emptiness of going home without the Cup.

"Winning the Conn Smythe meant nothing at the time," says Hextall, now a pro scout for the Flyers. "The loss was so disheartening -- I still think about it. I look back on it now and I'm proud of winning the Smythe, but I'd take the other Cup ahead of that one."

Through the first four games of the Finals, it didn't look like Hextall would get a chance to win either trophy. The Oilers, looking for their third championship in four years, led 3-1 after winning Game 4 in Philadelphia and were poised to close out the series at home. But Hextall wouldn't let than happen. He made 31 saves as the Flyers rallied for a 4-3 victory in Game 5, then stopped 30 shots in a come-from-behind 3-2 victory in Game 6, setting up the first full-length championship series in 16 years.

Despite pushing the series to the limit, the Flyers weren't exactly brimming with confidence entering Game 7. That may have been because their pre-game inspiration from Games 5 and 6 was missing. Coach Mike Keenan had inspired his troops before the two previous games by having the Stanley Cup wheeled into the Flyers' locker room. But the Cup was nowhere to be found before Game 7. – it later turned up in the trunk of a car belonging to one of their trainers.

The Flyers knew they could use every edge they could find.

"It wasn't like we went out there thinking, ‘we're going to win,'" Hextall says. "We had won Games 5 and 6, so we knew we had a shot. But we were playing maybe the best team of all time."

The Flyers' roll continued in the early minutes of the game. They capitalized on an early penalty and took the lead on Murray Craven's power-play goal 1:41 into the game. But Mark Messier tied it at 7:45, and Jari Kurri got what proved to be the game-winner at 14:59 of the second period. Glenn Anderson's insurance goal with 2:24 remaining in the third period assured the Oilers of being champions again. Hextall was left with an honor he didn't much care for at the time.

"It was frustrating to have come so far and worked so hard and accomplished nothing," he says. "I look back at it now and realize that we accomplished a lot. But it was an empty feeling. I fretted about [that game] for months."

Part of the frustration at not winning was the grit the Flyers had shown. They trailed by at least two goals in all three of the games they won, and all were won with third-period rallies -- in Edmonton's six trips to the finals from 1984-90, the Flyers' three wins were the only games in which the Oilers lost when leading after two periods.

Hextall still has fond memories of that 1987 squad.

"This was a special team," Hextall says. "I've been on some dedicated teams, but never on one like that, where all 25 guys worked so hard. We were outmanned, but we took maybe the greatest team in hockey right to the end."

In 1994, Mark Messier ended a 54-year Cup drought in New York when he helped the Rangers down the Vancouver Canucks in seven games.

1994: The Drought Ends

What a difference a day made.

With his New York Rangers worn down after losing Games 5 and 6 of the 1994 Finals to Vancouver, Neil Smith was glad that the schedule called for an extra day of rest before Game 7 at Madison Square Garden. As eager as he was to see the team he had built end hockey's longest championship drought, Smith was content to wait an extra day.

"Having two days of rest saved us," says Smith, then the Rangers' general manager and now an network analyst. "We were an older team and a lot of our guys had injuries. The extra day off really helped."

So did having the deciding game at Madison Square Garden, where a roaring sellout crowd was eager for its first taste of victory since 1940. "Playing before that home crowd was huge," Smith says. "We didn't want to be known as a team that blew a 3-1 lead in the Finals."

Not that Smith wasn't nervous after seeing his team win three of the first four games, then miss a chance to win the Cup at home in Game 5 and get beaten badly in Game 6 at Vancouver. "I don't think I slept at all the night before," he says.

But the Rangers, who hosted Game 7 after finishing with the NHL's best regular-season record for the second time in three seasons, were anything but nervous. Riding on the roar of the crowd, they dominated the first period and got goals from Brian Leetch and Adam Graves to leave the ice with a 2-0 lead. Trevor Linden's shorthanded goal early in the second cut the margin to 2-1, but Mark Messier jammed in a rebound late in the period to restore the two-goal edge with 20 minutes to play.

However, breaking a 54-year Cup drought isn't easy, and the Canucks made everyone nervous when Linden scored again with 15:10 to play. Now it was a one-goal game -- and for Smith, the seconds turned into minutes. Linden's second goal "numbed the building," he says. "Just when we thought we had it -- we found out that it's never over until it's over."

The Canucks spent most of the last 10 minutes in the Rangers' zone, but Mike Richter stopped everything in sight -- at one point getting some help from the goal post when Geoff Courtnall's potential game-tying shot caught the iron.

Even the fates appeared to torture the Rangers. With the final seconds winding down, Steve Larmer finally dumped the puck out of the zone, but the play was whistled back on an icing call with 1.8 seconds remaining.

But by then, even Smith was starting to relax.

"As paranoid as I can get," he says, "I knew that they weren't going to score with that little time on the clock." Craig MacTavish won the last draw and the longest championship drought in NHL history was over.

"Carrying the Cup was surreal," says Smith, who came to New York in 1989 and built the Rangers into a championship team in five years. "It was higher than any high. When I came to New York in 1989, there was such doubt that anyone could ever build a Cup winner in New York."

To Smith, who had never been an NHL general manager before taking the Rangers' job, building a championship team in New York was especially sweet.

"To have done it in New York, a place I never thought would win before I got there, was extremely satisfying -- one of the most rewarding feelings of my life," Smith says "To have done it for the fans -- there were people there actually crying. It was like the birth of a child. To have built that team and see the joy when we won the Cup was unbelievable."

2001: Not Everyone Loves Raymond

Ray Bourque had to get his Cup the hard way in 2001 when the Devils pushed the Avs to the limit.

The 2001 playoffs often looked like the NHL's version of "Everybody Loves Raymond," with Ray Bourque in the starring role. Bourque's quest for his first Stanley Cup ring was the story of the 2001 playoffs for most of the hockey world.

Don't count Ken Daneyko in that group.

The veteran defenseman and his New Jersey Devils teammates had no interest in seeing Bourque cap his Hall of Fame career by winning the Cup that had eluded him for more than two decades. As the defending champions, they were more interested in making their own kind of history.

"We'd already won two Cups (the first in 1995), and a win would have put us in the class of a dynasty," says Daneyko, whose tenure with the Devils dated to 1983-84, their second season in New Jersey. "Ray Bourque winning the Cup wasn't my story line. I wanted us to win and become a dynasty."

For the first time since 1988-89, the 2001 finals matched up the conference champions; the Devils won the East and the Colorado Avalanche was No. 1 in the West. According to Daneyko, there were no secrets between the two teams.

"We knew how good they were," he says of the Avalanche, which earned the chance to host Game 7 by winning the Presidents' Trophy. "They finished with 116 points. They were the best. We knew what to expect. I don't think there was any extra pressure on us because we were the defending champs. We were both expected to be there."

The Devils had a chance to avoid a seventh game when they captured Game 5 in Denver. They went back to New Jersey with the opportunity to finish off the series, but Patrick Roy was superb in a 4-0 shutout that sent the series back to Colorado for a deciding game.

"We didn't put in a good effort in Game 6," Daneyko says. "That was the disappointing part. We should have wrapped it up and not left things to chance in Game 7. They had momentum going back to their building after winning Game 6."

The Avalanche rode that momentum and the home-ice edge to a 3-0 lead and coasted to a 3-1 victory, giving Bourque the one thing he had never won in a career that's sure to earn him a place in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

The loss still grates on Daneyko.

"It seemed that we didn't want it as badly as they did," he says. "We don't feel like we accomplished something just by getting to the finals again -- we weren't a Cinderella team that was just happy to be there. To lose the Stanley Cup Final like that was devastating. Anything less than a championship is a disappointment."

And though Daneyko respects what Bourque accomplished, it was hard to him skating around the Pepsi Center with the Cup Daneyko and his teammates felt should have been theirs.

"He had a great career -- he's a future Hall of Famer and maybe the best defenseman that ever played," Daneyko says of Bourque. "If I wasn't in [the Final], I'd have been happy for him. But it's tough to be happy for him when you're on the other side."

2003: Out of nowhere

Every team that goes deep into the playoffs carries a few extra players, guys who might have spent most of the season in the minors but are on hand in case someone gets hurt or the coach feels the team needs a spark. Mike Rupp was one of those players for the 2003 New Jersey Devils, a big young forward who spent most of the season in the AHL.

"I played in Albany for 2 1/2 years, and they gave me a call in January," said Rupp, picked in the third round by the Devils in the 2000 Entry Draft. "I played in 26 [NHL] games and felt good. I kind of thought that was it until next season. I never thought I would get into the Stanley Cup Finals."

Mike Rupp came from out of nowhere to help the Devils win the Cup in seven games last year over the Mighty Ducks.

But with center Joe Nieuwendyk unable to play in the finals against the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim due to injury, Rupp finally got a chance in Game 4.

"We always kept an eye on him. We know the guy has talent," coach Pat Burns said. "We just have to force him to be able to use all his attributes every night."

Rupp said he was just happy to get the chance to play.

"I thought I might get into one game," he said. "I wanted to contribute any way I possibly could, maybe by winning a big draw. It didn't have to be on the score sheet."

Rupp had just one assist in his first three appearances as the Mighty Ducks battled back from losing the first two games to force Game 7 in a series that saw the home team win each of the first six games. Burns opted to dress Rupp again in the deciding game and play him on a line with Jeff Friesen and Jamie Langenbrunner.

The 6-foot-5 Rupp had a feeling something good was going to happen.

"I felt really good when I woke up," he said. "I was probably the most calm I've been in an NHL game this year. The leaders, the veterans on this team, kept us very calm, they keep you laughing all the way to game time."

But there was little laughter at the Continental Airlines Arena once the puck dropped; the game remained scoreless through the first period as Jean-Sebastien Giguere, whose goaltending had sparked the Ducks to the brink of their first championship, matched saves with Martin Brodeur. Just 2:22 into the second, though, Rupp made Burns look like a genius by beating Giguere to open the scoring, Ten minutes later, Rupp fed Friesen, who scored to give the Devils a 2-0 lead. And with 3:44 remaining in the third period, Rupp assisted on another goal by Friesen as the Devils rolled to a 3-0 victory and their third Stanley Cup in nine years.

The victory gave Brodeur his third shutout in the finals, sent 20-year veteran defenseman Ken Daneyko into retirement with a third Stanley Cup ring, and made Rupp one of the unlikeliest players ever to score the Cup-winning goal.

"Two weeks ago, I would never have thought this could happen," he said after earning the game's first star and adding his name to a list that includes some of hockey's immortals. "Coach Burns put me into this situation and showed he believed in me, and I've been blessed."

For his part, Burns said Rupp simply made the most of his opportunity.

"I kept telling him, 'You know what you have right now. You know the opportunity you have.' I kept on reminding him and he definitely took it."