ANAHEIM -- Six games in and nothing decided between the Anaheim Ducks and the Chicago Blackhawks.

Six nights of tumult and heaving emotions on both sides of the equation.

One night to determine who advances to the Stanley Cup finals.

The Blackhawks were in just this position a year ago and were denied by the Los Angeles Kings. The Ducks, meanwhile, have not played such a meaningful game since clinching their one and only Stanley Cup win in 2007.

It is a night made for heroes, as all Game 7s are, and a night for players to grow larger than life.

We’ve already seen the hero roll filled by Duncan Keith, who recorded three second-period assists in Chicago's Game 6 victory; teammate Andrew Shaw, who scored the triple-overtime winner in Game 2; and Matt Beleskey, who scored the overtime winner for the Ducks in Game 5.

So who steps up on Saturday?

The pressure will forever be on the big stars, like Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane in Chicago and Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry in Anaheim. But these games are fertile ground for the unsung and the lesser known.

Here’s a primer for some unsung heroes who could become, well, sung:

Brad Richards, Blackhawks

Richards is bucking to play in the Stanley Cup finals for the second straight season with different teams, having fallen short as a member of the New York Rangers last spring. Richards has had a strong series, picking up another assist in Chicago’s 5-2 win in Game 6 to keep the team’s playoff hopes alive. He has a goal and four assists in the conference finals. He’s played a lot with Kane and Bryan Bickell, although with Kane moving up to play with Toews and Brandon Saad in Game 6, Richards found himself with Bickell and another old war horse, Marian Hossa. Who knows what's ahead for Richards, who signed a one-year deal with the Hawks last summer, but the former playoff MVP has shown he still has some game left, and he knows as well as anyone in that locker room the fleeting nature of playoff success.

Teuvo Teravainen, Blackhawks

At the other end of the experience/age spectrum is 20-year-old Teravainen, who continues to impress in his first NHL playoffs. Still boggles the mind a bit that head coach Joel Quenneville scratched Teravainen (and Antoine Vermette) for Game 3, but that’s a moot point now. Teravainen has terrific skill and, while he’s not imposing physically, he’s not afraid to go into traffic and the so-called "dirty" areas of the ice. Quenneville cut Teravainen’s ice time to 12:32 in Game 6 but he deserves more. Does the youngster have some Game 7 magic in his stick? Well, we know he’s capable of magic as witnessed by his crafty pass to Brent Seabrook late in the second period of Game 5, when the Blackhawks were trying to recover from a 3-0 first-period deficit.

Patrick Maroon, Ducks

Maroon reminds one of the power of perseverance, while carving out a nice niche on the Ducks’ top line with captain Getzlaf and Perry. Maroon has become adept at using his big body to hunt down and control pucks in the Blackhawks’ zone, then making sure his more talented linemates get the puck as he heads to the front of the net to create some chaos. It is entirely likely that Game 7 will turn on a greasy play around the net, a bouncing puck, a deflection -- Maroon scored Anaheim’s first goal in Game 6 by deflecting a Cam Fowler shot past Corey Crawford -- and the St. Louis-area native who grew up playing roller hockey is well-suited to produce that kind of play.

Antoine Vermette, Blackhawks

It’s been a strange playoff for Vermette, who was one of the most-sought-after rental players at the trade deadline. Chicago paid a hefty premium for the former Arizona Coyotes forward in a first-round pick and a defensive prospect. But he was held out of the lineup twice in the opening round and came up with just one goal in his first 10 playoff games before being scratched in Game 3 of this series. But he redeemed himself with the double-overtime winner in Game 4. The soft-spoken Vermette has been playing mostly with Teravainen and Patrick Sharp on what might be the most talented third line in many a playoff moon. Vermette hasn’t done his market value much good this spring as he heads toward free agency on July 1, and there’s pretty much zero chance he returns to Chicago, but that stock would take a significant jump if he factors into Game 7 in a positive way.

Cam Fowler, Ducks

We have become more and more impressed with Fowler as this series has gone along. He skates like the wind and has terrific confidence with the puck. Much of the attention this spring has -- deservedly so -- gone to Hampus Lindholm, another of the Ducks’ top young defensemen. But Fowler seems to be fully embracing this big-time stage. He was a member of the U.S. Olympic team in Sochi and has already played in a number of big games at the NHL level, including the disappointing loss to Los Angeles last season and the Game 7 loss the season before to Detroit. Our gut tells us he has the attitude and the hockey tools to bring something special to Game 7.

Frederik Andersen, Ducks

So let’s do the math. Over the past three games Andersen has allowed five, four and four goals. Doesn’t sound like the previously great Dane is trending the right way, does it? But we watched Andersen closely in Game 6 given how miserably his Game 5 had gone -- allowing two late Toews goals that sent the game to overtime -- and he was more than fine despite allowing four goals on 22 shots. Even though Chicago poured three goals past him in a 3:45 span of the second period, they were hardly his fault. More important, he made a couple of key saves, including a magnificent save on Marcus Kruger on a two-on-one that allowed the Ducks to make a game of it. Wouldn’t it be a great finish to this series if the big netminder turned in an aces performances after many had written him off?

Bryan Bickell, Blackhawks

When the highlight of your conference finals series is hitting a crossbar in overtime -- meaning you missed by only a little -- well, you know things aren’t going great. Bickell, a big-time playoff performer for Chicago in 2013 and 2014, has come up dry this spring with zero goals and five assists in 16 games. He has one lonely assist in this series. But we know from history that the big man has the potential to rise to the occasion. He scored the tying goal in 2013 against Boston that set the stage for a Chicago championship. He totaled 16 goals in the 2013 and 2014 playoffs. Saturday would be a good time to start erasing whatever disappointment Bickell has been feeling about his production this spring.