History is not kind to those teams that came agonizingly close to winning the Stanley Cup.

The Bruins in June became the 10th team since 1971 to lose Game 7 of the Cup final. Of the previous nine, not one made it past the second round of the playoffs the following season.

The last time the Bruins took the ice together, the Stanley Cup was in the building. Hockey immortality was within their grasp.

Now, when they take the ice on Thursday night in Dallas to open the new season, the Cup is a far-off dream as achievable at this point for the lowly Ottawa Senators as it is for the Bruins.

You go from the shocker that you went that far in Game 7 and then youre in disbelief because you thought it was your destiny, said Kay Whitmore, a goalie on the Vancouver Canucks who lost Game 7 of the final the New York Rangers in 1994. You thought, It cant end this way.

So you had all summer to think about it. You come back to...

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