"Like many of the 22,224 people surrounding Duncan Keith at the United Center during the Blackhawks' 4-2 victory over the Sharks on Sunday that clinched the team's first trip to the Stanley Cup finals in 18 years, Keith got a little choked up.

The lump in Keith's throat was enamel, not emotion. He coughed up a tooth that lodged there after the puck fired off the stick of the Sharks' Patrick Marleau smacked Keith in the face in the second period. It knocked out seven teeth — three on top, four on the bottom.

"I took one breath, and it felt like my whole mouth was missing," Keith said.

Keith returned after team doctors numbed his mouth to log a team-high 29 minutes, 2 seconds, the example of perseverance the Hawks showed in turning a 2-0 deficit into a Campbell Bowl presentation to the Western Conference champions.

"They didn't say a whole lot when I came off because they didn't want to scare me the way it looked," Keith said. "No stitches. They just stuck a bunch of needles in there and froze it all up.

"Obviously, it feels a lot better when we win."

In a satisfied but hardly celebratory Blackhawks dressing room, discussing the win brought a grin to a face of swollen lips and a huge gap in the center of Keith's mouth. It was a smile only the mother of all hockey cities could love, and that's what Chicago is after the Blackhawks needed only four games to dispose of the West's No. 1 seed."