VANCOUVER, B.C. -- Alex Burrows went on a wild ride Tuesday night, and he finished on the bottom of a pile of elated and relieved Canucks.
Burrows scored the overtime winner in Game 7 at Rogers Arena to lift Vancouver into the Western Conference Semifinals with a 2-1 win against the Chicago Blackhawks. He also scored the Canucks' lone goal in regulation -- but between his goals he missed on a penalty shot and took a holding penalty that gave Chicago a power play 24 seconds into overtime.
He of course met with the media following the win, and here's some of what he had to say:
Q: What does this mean to you on a personal level?
A: Really, if someone else would have scored I would have been as happy. It is a team win. We wanted to move on to the second round and I was lucky enough for it to be me tonight. We'll need 20 guys to keep moving forward.
Q: How much did this organization need this win?
A: I don't think I'm the right person to answer that. For us as players, we just wanted to move on, and obviously being up 3-0 we felt confident -- but we gave them some momentum in those three games. We had a great Game 6, and it came down to tonight. It was a goalie matchup tonight. Both of them played well and were lucky enough to get it done in OT.
Q: What were you thinking when you were sitting in the penalty box in OT?
A: Hopefully get it done, boys. I normally spend a lot of time on the PK, but they made a lot of great reads and we only gave them one shot and Lu (Roberto Luongo) sealed the ice really well on (Patrick) Sharp there. I think we had four clears. I was just hoping we could get it done (so I could) go out there and get it done for the boys."
Q: Was this as emotional a roller-coaster for you as it seemed to be?
A: Well, yeah. I have played a few years now and I try to keep it even keel. Obviously I missed some chances there in the third period, but I just stuck with it, kept playing well and I wanted to keep believing, keep working hard and keep doing good things out there. We just stuck with the plan and we got the result we were looking for.
Q: When you got the puck in your glove, what did you see?
A: I knew I was going to have a step on the guy that shot it. I just dropped it and I knew the puck was rolling, so I wanted just to make sure it was going on net. Those are tough shots to stop for goalies. It knuckled right through his blocker and went in, and then I got hit by a few guys.
Q: What is the first thing you feel when you score an overtime winning goal in Game 7?
A: Oh, it's great, a great feeling. It felt almost like it was a dream, but guys jumped on me and I couldn't breathe, so I knew it was right.
Follow Dan Rosen on Twitter at: @drosennhl
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