'It's just missing teeth' Dental disaster can't keep Keith off the ice for long

John Madden estimated Duncan Keith's mouthguard flew 22 feet.

Taking a puck to the kisser from close range will do that to a guy.

Just ask the Blackhawks all-everything defenseman.

But when you do, remember to lean in close, because a mouth chock full of novocaine, a stitched up lower lip and the sudden subtraction of seven teeth can make speaking clearly awfully tough.

"Three on top and four on the bottom," Keith said, opening wide to reveal a smile Leon Spinks or any first grader would recognize.

But this was no laughing matter.

The minute San Jose's Patrick Marleau's clearing attempt in the second period connected with Keith's mouth from about 15 feet away, he knew it was trouble. Everyone did.

"I knew right away. I took one breath and I felt like my whole mouth was missing," he said. "I saw a couple of them fall out and I had one I could feel in the back of my throat and I just coughed it out. A bunch of them disintegrated."

After dropping his stick and covering his mouth, Keith headed directly to the bench and down to the dressing room where the Hawks' medical staff went to work.

"They just numbed it, stuck a bunch of needles in there and froze it up," Keith said. "They didn't say a lot; I don't think they wanted to scare me with the way I looked."

After missing about six minutes of play in the period, Keith was back on the ice to finish off the frame and the rest of the game.

He wouldn't have had it any other way, regardless of what the doctors had warned.

"No, I was (ticked) off," Keith said. "It's just missing teeth. It's a long way from the heart."

Anyone want to talk about Chicago tough now?

"He's a battler, he's a warrior," said Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville.

"It just shows how much he wants to win," captain Jonathan Toews said. "That was a sacrifice he made and paid the price to make."

"I don't know how many teeth it was, but he's going to have a million-dollar smile with those chops now," Patrick Kane said. "Hopefully he plays without 'em. That would be pretty cool."

"He's crazy," Madden said. "That's what hockey players do and Duncs is no different. He's one of our leaders and we knew he'd be back."

And that he was, not wanting to miss being a part of history as the Blackhawks advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 1992.

"It feels a lot better when we win," Keith said. "I'd probably be hurting a lot more if we had lost."

He knows the hurting part will come soon enough.

"I'm sure I'll be at the dentist for a while," he said with a toothless grin. "Not a lot of fun.'