2012 Stanley Cup playoffs: Dale Hunter keeps his cool as Capitals advance The message from The Eliminator - Hunter is the only player in league annals to twice score the winning goal in overtimes of deciding games - resonated like a thunderbolt on Wednesday night at the TD Garden. Joel Ward punching in a rebound goal pierced the Boston Bruins for good three minutes into Game 7, a goal that gave Washington its first knockout of a defending Cup champion in franchise history and sent the Capitals to a second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs hardly anyone outside their locker room envisioned just three weeks ago. Well, anyone but Hunter. Amid the nerves and the angst knowing one team would go home, he trudged nonchalantly around the TD Garden Wednesday, looking almost bored by it all. So unmoved by the moment, he could have been the Zamboni driver smoothing over a patch of ice instead of the coach of the road team playing a Game 7 on the home ice of the defending Stanley Cup champions. "Don't you feel pressure?" a team official said. Pressure? Hunter replied. Then. And now. "I just told them to go out there and have fun," he said afterward on the dais. This was one of the most dead-even series ever, the first in league history to ever have all seven games decided by one goal. Only once in 400-plus minutes of hockey did either team ever hold a two-goal lead - and Boston erased both in a mere 28 seconds in an heirloom of a Game 5. General Manager George McPhee's decision to bring Hunter in after firing Bruce Boudreau in late November was a move said, in this space, to be the wrong one with two weeks to play in what looked like a depressing end to an underachieving season. But if the Caps go even one more round, it's going to be hard to back that theory. They found themselves late and played with purpose and passion to get in. Then they played Hunter's dump-chase-and-defend game as well as it can be played against the Bruins, using an economy of energy to poke pucks away at the last possible second in front of rookie goaltender Braden Holtby. A word about Holtby: unflinching. At 22 years old, he was golden in goal - especially given his counterpart for Boston, Tim Thomas, was one of the top three goalies in the game and he saw and stopped 42 more shots than Thomas before overtime of Game 7. He couldn't be rattled, no matter what Boston did throughout the series. Proof of their depth of their lines, Alex Ovechkin was limited to a scant two goals through seven games and often had defensive lapses that kept him off the ice when the game was tied or the Caps had the lead. This was a series for the third- and fourth liners, and Ward and Hendricks, who deflected the Caps" other goal in during the first period, were a window into the grit of a team that found a way to knock off Boston, who boasted four 60-point scorers and could play fast, disciplined or muck-it-up hockey. If there was any doubt whether McPhee returns, this series erased all of it. A high-ranking team official, on condition of anonymity, confirmed McPhee will be back as the team's architect. Because he is under contract until the 2013-2014 season, it was really not an issue. But like every player McPhee brought in and had not panned out as many observers thought - including Ward, who makes $3 million per season - he justified his moves with this victory and the team's switch to a more defensive style. A year ago, the second round was almost expected - a rite of passage after the best record in the Eastern Conference. This year, it feels like a genuine surprise after such an underachieving regular season. Going forward - in one of the most remarkable Washington springs for sports in a while, where the Nationals are winning and the Redskins are hours away from taking Robert Griffin III as their new franchise quarterback - it feels like no pressure at all. As if Dale Hunter, The Eliminator then and now, ever felt any of it to begin with. "That's as emotional as I've seen him," Hendricks said. When he talked to us before the overtime, it looked like he wanted to go out and play.