It still hurts: Several Bruins come forward speakng about 'moving on' after Game Six loss

17 seconds. 

17 seconds is all it took for the Bruins magical run to the Stanley Cup Finals to end. 17 seconds. Over the course of 17 meager ticks of the clock, the sacrifice by Gregory Campbell and Patrice Bergeron, and the OT heroics that guided the Black and Gold back into summer hockey for the second time in 3 seasons was flushed down the drain.  

With 1 minute and 16 seconds to go in Game Six of the Stanley Cup Finals, the Boston Bruins had the lead in the game that they had to win. It was game six and the series was tilted 3-2 in Chicago's favor and long story short, a loss would give the Hawks the Stanley Cup.  The Bruins had the lead off of a Milan Lucic goal and in the minds of nearly everyone in the hockey world; it was time to pack your bags for Game Seven. 

Yet in the blink of an eye, time seemed to stop as in a psychotic scrum in-front of the Boston net  the puck somehow found its way through to tie the game with a little over a minute to go. But all the damage was not done. 17 seconds after the Brian Bickall goal, Tuukka Rask found himself caught out of his net meaning that with 59 seconds left in Game Six, everything had changed. The Blackhawks had flipped the score and now led 3-2 Rask was pulled for the extra attacker but that frantic attempt would be for not as when the clock hit 0, the score had not changed. The Chicago Blackhawks had won the Stanley Cup, the Bruins had not. 

Almost 2 months after that gut wrenching game, the memory of the celebration that followed the conclusion of the contest are admittedly still fresh in the minds of this Boston roster.

During a Shawn Thornton organized "Putts & Punches for Parkinson's" golf tournament, ESPN's Joe McDonald caught up with Bruins: Tuukka Rask and Danial Pallie.   

"I definitely got some time to reflect on the overall picture and it's definitely a little bit disappointing in the result we have, but we can move on and make sure we learn from that mistake," Said Paille as Rask nodded in agreement. "Right after, you just want to forget about it and not think about it," he said. "Then in the first few weeks you're trying not to think about hockey at all, but I still find myself thinking about it and how much it sucks. Everybody knows what the situation was with our guys being hurt and stuff. We definitely left everything out there, so there are no regrets or no feelings that we should have done something differently and I think that helps the healing process."

Rask then spoke.

"You can always be better, right?" added Rask. "And looking at last year, I don't think we played our best hockey but we still somehow made it to the finals. A lot of things have to click. You have to play as a team and all kinds of stuff has to happen, but if you look at the roster I can't see a reason why we couldn't be better." And he has a point. 

When you look at this Bruins roster statistically, they are even better than the one that got farther in the playoffs than 30 other teams. They dumped Tyler Seguin and Rich Peverly and got Loui Eriksson in return in a big trade with Dallas, then after losing Nathan Horton to Columbus, they finally snagged Jarome Iginla, while resigning both Rask and Bergeron to max 8 year contracts. Though the Bruins would lose Andrew Ference before all was done, a happy fact remains ever so ridged. The Bruins are a better team today than they were 2 months ago. 

"From what I'm told, it should be a seamless transition with the guys we're bringing in," Thornton said "With Loui Eriksson, both Axelsson brothers texted me and told me how great a guy he is and how much we're going to love him." 

But for this team there is one more facet that might shoot the Bruins in the foot: chemistry. When Jaromir Jagr came to this team at the Trade Deadline in April, the core group mentality seemed to get to him as he scored just 2 goals in Boston before he was let go in July. Fact is when you think about it, the core group of Chara, Bergeron, Lucic, Marchand, Seidenberg and company that brought their team to the Cup Finals in 2011 had not changed at all since that grand day that they hoisted the cup in Vancouver. Yet over the course of this off-season, it has. They have lost their praised young scorer: Tyler Seguin and seen Nathan Horton skate away from the team. Andrew Ference could not be resigned and while he may not REALLY be a huge Bruin for life kind of guy, Rich Peverly is gone to.  

Now don't get me wrong, the Bruins have replaced this talent but what they never will be able to replace is the chemistry. The camaraderie that is built from hours on the road will never return. All that they can hope for is that they can forge new bonds and connections that hopefully will translate into the "defend your teammate" atmosphere that has made this Bruins team so great to watch over the past few seasons. 

"Yeah, definitely some big changes from last year," Paille said. "For myself, I don't want to change too much. I want to continue the trend I had last year and build off that. If an opportunity comes up where I'm able to take advantage of the situation where I could play that third-line spot, I definitely will, but I'm not quite sure what the circumstances are going to be at this point. I'm not really going to go with too many expectations. I'll go into training camp and see what the position will be. I definitely have no problem playing with Soupy and Thorty because we've done so well in the past." 

Since Pallie came to the Bruins in 2009-2010, he has progressively increased his poise but exploded in this 2013 season as with his 10 goal 48 game season had him on pace to score 17 goals in a regular 82 game  year. 

"I don't think anybody will dispute that, [the Bruins look better in paper]” Paille said. "We definitely want to get that chemistry going, especially early on with [new teammates], and we'll definitely try to progress as much as we can throughout training camp and build throughout the whole season."

 Thornton then spoke right as Pallie concluded his statement. "I like where our team's at. On paper it looks great, but paper is one thing, we have to perform, still. I'm excited about the upcoming year." 

2 months ago, the Blackhawks ripped the Bruins hearts right out of their chests with 17 of the most historic seconds in hockey history. They broke the hearts of millions of Bruins fans while bringing smiles to the faces of millions of their own followers...all with 17 seconds of glory. 2 months later, the sting of that late night defeat has not gone away but for the Bruins they are almost ready to move on.  

It still hurts but with just 1 month separating them from training camp, it is time to shove away the pain and throw it on some other team next June.