The smiles -- always lopsided, and often gap-toothed -- are the indelible signature of a Stanley Cup Championship.

To emerge as the final victors after two months of intense, pressure-filled, often-brutal playoff hockey is an accomplishment that brings out the little boy in even the most hardened hockey professional. The sense of joy and relief such an accomplishment engenders forms a powerful elixir that is always manifested in an almost punch-drunk grin.

But, lurking in the background, closer than most players will admit to all but their closest confidantes, is a sense of relief -- an unspeakable gratefulness that the punishment is complete.

No athlete, no matter the sport, pushes the body harder or longer than an NHL player chasing the Stanley Cup.

Severe injuries are so often brushed aside in the quest for immortality that it has become a right of hockey's spring. Minor injuries, still painful enough to incapacitate a mere mortal, are not even acknowledged during this time.

In the postseason, the body talks loudly, screaming out its woes every other night as another ordeal, sure to last more than two hours, begins. The mind, however, does not readily listen during the heat of combat, drowning out the warning signals and pushing through the pain to focus on the goal at hand.

Toronto's Bobby Baun may well be the poster boy for the mind-over-matter struggle that rages in the heart of all involved in the Stanley Cup struggle. Baun returned to play in Game 6 of the 1964 Stanley Cup Finals against Detroit after suffering a fractured ankle.

Toronto's Bobby Baun may well be the poster boy for the mind-over-matter struggle that rages in the heart of all involved in the Stanley Cup struggle. Baun returned to play in Game 6 of the 1964 Stanley Cup Finals against Detroit after suffering a fractured ankle.

As if that wasn't enough, Baun then scored the game-winning goal against Terry Sawchuk at 1:42 of the extra session for a 4-3 win. Inspired by Baun's heroics, Toronto also won Game 7 to claim the Stanley Cup.

Many players had endured playoff injuries before Baun's heroics. More have suffered silently since. Pain -- and fighting through it -- is as much a part of postseason lore as playoff beards and post-series handshakes.

Last year's postseason was just the latest example.

Few can forget the alarming sight of New Jersey captain Scott Stevens sliding across the ice early in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals, blood smeared behind him after being felled by a wicked slap shot from Tampa Bay's Pavel Kubina that caught Stevens flush in the left ear.

Stevens left the game with his status for the rest of the postseason cloudy at best. Instead, Stevens returned for the next game, the left side of his face so swollen that his jaw was out of line for much of the previous day. All he did in his return, a comeback no one foresaw, was play a team-high 27:35 and score the winning goal on a power play.

Devils' goalie Martin Brodeur watched the whole thing from his perch in the New Jersey crease and remains amazed to this day at the courage he witnessed that night at the St. Pete Times Forum.

"It's amazing that he was able to bounce back and be so effective, get all that ice time and all," Brodeur said after the 3-2 win. "It shows you what kind of athlete he is."

Dave Andreychuk, the Lightning captain, was even more blunt.

"You only have to play with him day in and day out to know (how tough he is)," said Andreychuk, who played previously with Stevens in New Jersey. "He didn't look like he missed much of a beat to me."

New Jersey captain Scott Stevens once returned to the Playoffs after being felled by a wicked slap shot from Tampa Bay's Pavel Kubina that caught him flush in the left ear.

Stevens went on to play in the next 19 playoff games, leading his team to its third Stanley Cup in nine years. When it was all over, after a 3-0 blanking of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in a tense Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, Stevens exercised his captain's privilege, gliding out to accept the Stanley Cup from Commissioner Gary Bettman.

With a sold-out and delirious crowd lustily singing his praises, an uncharacteristic smile broke across his usually stoic visage, powerful enough to mask any concerns about the lingering effects from his scare a little more than a month earlier.

This year, however, Stevens has missed almost five months of action, out with post-concussion trauma -- a condition some trace back to the after-effects of Kubina's shot.

Now, as the Devils try to defend their hard-earned championship, Stevens remains on the sidelines, again pushing his hesitant body in a determined effort to return to the fray.

Two years ago, Detroit's Steve Yzerman endured excruciating pain in his knee throughout the Playoffs, just for a chance to hoist the Stanley Cup over his head. The injury had caused him to miss 30 games during the regular season.

Two years ago, Detroit's Steve Yzerman endured a similar ordeal. After playing much of the year on a badly injured knee, the Red Wings' captain missed 30 games while battling a knee that refused to obey his commands.

But, the lure of the playoffs began blaring a siren's song in his head and Yzerman returned despite playing on essentially one leg.

Not only did he return, he played extremely well. Pushing through the pain in his knee, Yzerman put up 23 points in 23 games as Detroit easily handled Carolina in the Finals to win the franchise's third Stanley Cup in six years.

Like Stevens, Yzerman forgot all about the pain in his knee as he smiled broadly and received the Stanley Cup, quickly passing it off to coach Scotty Bowman, who had just announced his retirement.

Yet, the pain he so successfully masked was as undeniable as his brilliance on the ice that spring. Just two months after hoisting the Cup, Yzerman underwent a radical reconstruction process on the ailing knee, a procedure that cost him all but 16 games of the following season.

And, just like Stevens, it was a price Yzerman was more than willing to submit to in order to claim hockey's ultimate prize.

Unfortunately, suffering does not ensure ultimate glory in the cruel arena of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. For every player who soothes his wounds with sweet sips of champagne from the Stanley Cup, countless others are dispatched short of the goal, sent into a too-early summer vacation where injuries to the body and heart are slowly nursed back to health.

Minnesota's Willie Mitchell played in his first Stanley Cup Playoffs last spring, a 25-year-old defenseman that quickly emerged as the defensive bedrock of his team. Growing up in British Columbia, Mitchell was reared on tales of playoff heroism. Despite his inexperience, he innately understood and, more importantly, respected the fine, and often blurry, line that has to be traversed during the postseason between playing hurt and playing injured.

In the end, he decided to do both.

In the first round, an epic upset of Colorado, Mitchell suffered a broken cheekbone during Minnesota's Game 7 triumph. Yet, he never missed a shift, never mind a game. In the next round, he donned an awkward shield to protect the injury and willingly laid his body on the line against the favored Vancouver Canucks.

Unfortunately, the protective shield broadcast to all involved in that series that Mitchell was vulnerable. The Canucks processed that knowledge, targeting him for an extra dose of punishment in order to exploit whatever edge was offered. As a result, Mitchell suffered a wrist injury.

Again, Mitchell did not miss any games, playing despite the fact that he was so hampered by the wrist that he had trouble dressing himself before and after each game. It wasn't so much stubbornness on Mitchell's part, as much as it was a sense of duty.

In the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs last season, Minnesota's Willie Mitchell suffered a broken cheekbone during his team's Game 7 triumph over Colorado. Yet, he never missed a shift, never mind a game the rest of the postseason.

Mitchell wanted to be there for his teammates as they struggled along the playoff route. It is a sentiment shared by most, if not all, players in the postseason.

"I wanted to be in there, so (defensemen) Filip (Kuba) and Andrei (Zyuzin) and Nick (Schultz) didn't have to play 30 minutes apiece," he said at the time.

That selflessness paid off in the short-term as Minnesota sprung its second-straight upset, sending the Canucks home in a brilliant come-from-behind seven-game ouster.

But, in the long term, Mitchell's willingness to suffer was not enough to get Minnesota over the hump. The Wild went on to lose the Western Conference Finals to the Mighty Ducks, falling one hurdle short of reaching the Stanley Cup Finals.

Mitchell nursed himself back to health, but suffered through another injury-plagued season this year as Minnesota fell far below expectations and will not get the opportunity to chase the Stanley Cup this time around.

Sixteen other teams and 300-plus players, however, will earn that privilege this year. Some of those players will be seeing their first action in the cauldron of playoff hockey, just like Mitchell did last year. Others, like Stevens and Yzerman, will be returning for yet another session of punishment. All, however, will willingly put their bodies on the line -- for as long as their playoffs last -- for the honor of possibly being called a champion.

It's a huge price to pay, for sure. But, in the final reckoning of those involved, an appropriate one for the prize sought.