It's hard to imagine that we won't be playing hockey again tomorrow. It stinks. All the battles we have gone through with these guys, to have it end like that; it hurts your soul. That's what you work for and to have 23 guys come together like we did, there's a lot of good in that. But right now, you can't help but feel the bad.
It's tough. I don't think that any of us can look back at the past six or seven weeks and say we didn't give it our all. Everybody was so committed, everybody was doing their part to be a piece of the puzzle. At the end of the day, we weren't able to defeat a good Pittsburgh team. Credit to those guys, they played well and brought it for six games.
For us, this is a special group of guys. I will always remember the brothers I fought with. It's going to be a tough couple weeks, but I'm sure at the end of it, we'll all be able to see some positives. For me, as a player and as a person, on and off the ice, I learned so much from this group, from the leaders and from the young players. We are going to have to try to use the positives to make that next step next season.
The atmosphere tonight at SAP Center was incredible. Even at the end of the game, the crowd was so loud and cheering us on. That is a credit to this city and this fan base. They've been behind us 1,000 percent from day one of training camp to Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final. It stinks that we weren't able to take that final step.
I think we played well tonight. We had some chances. A power-play goal against for their first one tonight. That's how close it was, how close this whole series has been. It is the hardest trophy to win because you go through three tough teams just to get here. The mental grind is so hard. The Game 7s. Going into Consol Energy Center for a Game 5 and you see the atmosphere there. Then you come back here and have the fans be the way they were. It's unbelievable.
We wanted to do it; we thought we could get it done. This group was a special group. It took us 25 years to get to this point and we saw how hard it is to win the Stanley Cup. The bumps and bruises that the guys went through are unbelievable. Nobody can look back on this and hang their head. We've got to give credit to them, but we will come back stronger. It's a real emotional time right now.
