from Bob McManaman of azcentral,

Unlikely heroes

If LeBron or Steph Curry have a bad game, there's a pretty good chance their teams are going to lose because of it. Let's face it, NBA teams rely on two or three players to get the job done. But in hockey, it's never just the marquee players that save the day with a big play or a game-winning goal. It could be, and usually is, just about anyone that happens to be on the ice at any given time. It was a third-line center, Markus Kruger, who scored the game-winner for the Blackhawks in their triple-overtime victory against the Ducks in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals. That series wraps up Saturday night in Anaheim and don't be surprised if a role player emerges as the star.

Overtime

This one isn't even fair. In the NBA, you'll get the occasional thriller. But in the NHL, they happen with far more frequency and the intensity level is ratcheted up a hundred times over. One mistake can kill you. It's sudden-death overtime. In basketball, you can miss a free throw or a three-point shot early in OT and still survive. There has been a combined seven periods of overtime so far in the Stanley Cup Conference Finals – with two games to go. Only one game went into overtime during the NBA's Conference Finals. Playoff games can go on for so long in hockey, you can actually have a pizza delivered to the locker room between periods like Rick Tocchet once did when he was playing for the Penguins. Now that's cool.

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