STANLEY CUP Devils, Mighty Ducks clash for championship

Each team has won three games on its home ice entering Game 7 tonight.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) -- Mike Babcock entered the interview room carrying his luggage and sporting a 5 o'clock shadow.
The Anaheim Mighty Ducks' rookie coach was happy to be back in New Jersey, even after a tiring cross-country flight.
After six games against the Devils, all won by the home team, Babcock's players have one more chance to be the first road team to break through. If they do it tonight in Game 7, the 10-year-old Ducks will win the Stanley Cup.
"I can't express it enough how exciting it is to be with a group of guys that have tried this hard and come this far and been this impressive. I'm honored to be sitting here talking about them," Babcock said Sunday.
After Babcock left the podium, three of his top players followed him. They were all dressed casually with room keys in hand. Resting before the final game of the season seemed to be soon on the agenda.
Dreamed of title
"I've been dreaming my whole life of winning the Stanley Cup," forward Rob Niedermayer said. "You pretend you're playing in Game 7 on the pond when you're growing up as a kid. This is a position that you look to get to throughout the career."
It's also one the Devils have become quite accustomed to over the past nine years. In that time, they've won two Cups and squandered a 3-2 series lead when it appeared the 2001 title would be theirs as well.
That was the only time since 1971 a team has blown a 3-2 lead. New Jersey and Anaheim are playing the 12th Game 7 in Stanley Cup finals history. Home teams are 9-2; the last road winner also was in 1971, Montreal at Chicago.
"Whatever happened in the past doesn't count," Anaheim goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere said. "It's about what's going to happen [tonight] that's going to count."
And the Ducks believe they have one more surprise in store when they take the ice at Continental Airlines Arena. They have already erased 2-0 and 3-2 deficits to New Jersey.
"We wouldn't have won Game 6 if we didn't think we were going to win here," Babcock said. "Why would you bother with the flight?"
Coming through
Of course, they've been shocking people throughout the playoffs with the elimination of Detroit and Dallas, the top two teams in the Western Conference.
"I think we are going to leave it on the table, and everybody is so excited to play that game," Giguere said.
The Ducks lost the first two games of the finals in New Jersey, before getting even with two home wins. A trip back East didn't turn out well, as the Devils won Game 5 in a rout.
Facing elimination for the first time in this postseason, the Ducks responded again on home ice to tie the series 3-3.
"We've emotionally been a disaster," Babcock said. "Not that we don't have emotion. Keeping it under control has been the biggest challenge for us."