RALEIGH, N.C. -- When the game finally ended and nothing but empty bottles of Pedialyte and crusty orange rinds littered the dressing rooms, Igor Larionov still had one wish.

To go to his hotel room, crawl into bed and watch the World Cup.

"Russia and Japan -- 7:30 this morning," Larionov said.

Nobody was getting in his way.

For in the third-longest game in Stanley Cup finals history, Larionov's wrister 14:47 into the third overtime was the difference.

For the 41-year-old Larionov, the oldest player in the NHL, it was the biggest goal of his career. Bigger than anything he ever did for the Soviet national team. Bigger than anything he ever did for the Red Army team. And bigger than anything he had come close to doing in the NHL.

"This is, I think, the biggest goal of my career," Larionov said.

He thinks?

"I can't think of many bigger than that," Dominik Hasek said. "He's just being humble."

A serendipitous chain of events led to the game winner. There was the perfect pushing of the puck by a defensemen. The textbook fighting for the puck against the boards. The shielding of the goalie by a teammate. And a remarkable show of patience.

It culminated in a blink-of-the-eyes, flick-of-the-wrist laser that ended the Cup finals marathon and may have put the pesky Carolina Hurricanes away for good.

Afterwards, it was ironic that the oldest player on the ice was the one who ended it.

"He's played in so many big games," Wings coach Scotty Bowman said. "And he looks after himself. I mean, it's tough. That's like having two games. But you know -- that's why he's been able to play at the level he has for so long."

The play unfolded when Red Wings defenseman Steve Duchesne poked the puck loose on the defensive end. The puck ended up against the boards, where Detroit bruiser Tomas Holmstrom outfought a pair of Hurricanes and nudged the puck towards a streaking Larionov.

With hustling defenseman Mathieu Dandenault by his side, Larionov headed towards the goal with only Bates Battaglia to beat.

As he came around from left to right, Larionov controlled the puck on his stick, waited for Battaglia to dive, waited for Irbe to commit, waited for Dandenault to jump out of the way and then fired.

"I just decided to wait a little bit and then see what the defensemen were going to do," said Larionov, who hadn't scored in his last nine playoff games and had never scored in a playoff overtime. "He committed to me. He just slid on the ice and I just walked around him and took my time and put the puck in the net."

Battaglia, a second-year winger, was left all but helpless. As he slid on his face right past Larionov, the game-winning goal unfolded behind him.

"It was a two-on-one. I haven't been on the back end of too many two-on-one's," he said. "I just tried to hurry up Larionov, get him to take an early shot. I went down and once that happened, I didn't see too much until it was in the net."

Lost in the shuffle, at least in the final stat sheet, was Dandenault, who waited for the pass that never came, but then adjusted on the spot, using himself as a shield between Larionov and Carolina goalie Arturs Irbe.

"That's the type of play it should take to end a game like that," Detroit's Kris Draper said. "Iggy made a great play, but it doesn't happen without Homer fighting along the boards. And Mathieu driving to distract Irbe."

It was a fitting end. Throughout all three overtime periods, both teams wasted scoring chances. The Red Wings hit three crossbars. Detroit forward Brendan Shanahan beat Irbe, only to see his shot bounce off the spot where the net meets the crossbar. And both teams squandered golden power-play opportunities.

It all made Larionov's patience that more virtuous.

"Most guys would have shot it or passed it or something," defenseman Darren McCarty said. "I mean, there's no way they'd be able to hold onto it that long. But he just waited and waited and waited and then buried it."

Not bad for a guy who at his age, after some 30 years of playing elite hockey, should be gearing up for shuffleboard and Pina Coladas in Ft. Lauderdale.

Instead, Larionov is in the Stanley Cup finals, trying not to flinch when guys 20 years younger drive his face into a slab of plexi-glass. He survives because of his own rigorous training program. His teammates say he's one of the best conditioned athletes on the team.

So Saturday morning, when the clock started inching towards 1:30 a.m. and over 130 minutes of hockey had been played, the old man was hungry for more.

"What do you call a 41-year-old guy of his stature?" Detroit trainer John Wharton said. "A freak. The guy is a complete freak."

And as long as he got his soccer, a happy one.

Wayne Drehs is a staff writer at ESPN.com.