Boston Bruins stunned by late-game loss

The Boston Bruins were in a state of disbelief after giving up two late goals to concede the Stanley Cup to the Chicago Blackhawks.

"It was tough walking in that dressing room and seeing how disappointed everybody was and to try and tell them, as I often say, there's a lot of teams that would have loved to have been in our position tonight," Boston coach Claude Julien said.

"A loss is hard to take, but you've got to look a little further than that right now."

The Bruins won the Stanley Cup in 2011 but their charge through this season's play-offs had taken on added significance in a city still reeling from the horror off the Boston Marathon bombings and last year's Newtown shootings in neighbouring Connecticut.

"I think that's what hurts the most, in the back of our minds," Julien said. "Although we needed to focus on our team and doing what was going to be the best thing for our team to win a Stanley Cup, in the back of our minds we wanted to do it for those kind of reasons, the city of Boston, what Newtown has been through, that kind of stuff.

"It hit close to home, and the best way we felt we could try and cheer the area was to win a Stanley Cup. I think that's what's hard right now for the players. We had more reasons than just ourselves to win a Cup."