CHICAGO -- The final out of Game 6 in the National League Championship Series will be replayed in Chicago forever. No matter how many pennants or World Series the Cubs win in the future, this is the one that broke the 71-year NL pennant drought and put the team in position to finally confront the ghost of William Sianis’ goat.

The four wins against the Los Angeles Dodgers weren’t all dramatic, but they all featured key turning points in a series that put the Cubs in their most adverse position of the entire season. Down 2-1 after being shut out in back-to-back games, the Cubs responded with three straight wins, emphatically dismissing the prospect of any recurrent October horrors.

Let’s run through the Cubs’ biggest moments of the NLCS -- as we did after the Cubs’ victory in the NL Division Series. We’ll use win probability added (WPA) data from fangraphs.com for a numerical element, though the actual moments were chosen subjectively.

As for that final out: In terms of WPA adjusted for 71-year scarcity, let’s just assume that Aroldis Chapman getting the Dodgers' Yasiel Puig to ground into a double play takes the top prize.

1. Miguel Montero's grand slam in Game 1

(Win probability added: 35.5 percent)

Jon Lester held Los Angeles to one run over six innings but was pulled for a switch-hitter with the Cubs leading 3-0 in the sixth. In the eighth, the Dodgers loaded the bases with no one out, so Cubs manager Joe Maddon summoned Aroldis Chapman in for one of those six-out saves that the closer isn’t quite in love with. Chapman struck out Corey Seager and Yasiel Puig, but then Adrian Gonzalez knotted the score with a two-run single (31.7 WPA). That deflated the mood at Wrigley Field considerably, but not for long. Chicago loaded the bases against Joe Blanton, then Montero unloaded on a slider to break open the game. The Cubs won 8-4.

“It's easy to hit a grand slam in the first inning when nobody is actually screaming at it,” Montero said. “This one is a lot more special, because it's in front of this special crowd that we have, and you're always looking for that.”

2. Ben Zobrist bunts for a single in Game 4

(WPA: 4.5 percent)

There is no way to quantify what Zobrist’s bunt did for the Cubs in this game. Everything changed after it happened. The Cubs had not scored in 21 innings and had gone hitless through their first three frames against Julio Urias. While John Lackey had likewise kept the Dodgers off the scoreboard, the longer the Cubs’ offensive slump continued, the more the terrifying specter of a 3-1 deficit loomed over the mountaintops of Chavez Ravine. Then, leading off the fourth, Zobrist -- the Cubs’ cleanup hitter -- laid down a perfect bunt for Chicago’s first hit.

“It's always best when Benny does something extemporaneously,” Maddon said. “Whenever I give him a sign, it never works. So I'm glad he thought of it on his own.”

The bunt seemed to throw Urias off his rhythm. Javier Baez and Willson Contreras followed with singles. Jason Heyward drove in a run with a groundout. That set up ...

3. Addison Russell homers in Game 4

(WPA: 9.7)

Russell’s two-run homer to center did a lot more than put the Cubs up 4-0. It broke his playoff-long funk, and the emotion of the moment was evident when he pumped his fist while rounding the bases. This could be assigning meaning to an event after the fact, but it sure felt like Russell’s arrival to the postseason signified that this Cubs team was not going to collapse like so many of their forerunners had done. The Cubs went on to win 10-2.

“That's our team,” Maddon said. “You saw our team out there today.”

4. Russell homers in Game 5

(WPA: 25.6)

The Cubs had evened the series, but Game 5 was still fraught with apprehension. Lose that one and you go back to Wrigley Field needing to beat both Clayton Kershaw and Rich Hill. Lester was back on the mound and, as usual, he was on top of his game in the postseason. The Dodgers scratched out a run against him in the fourth, and that was enough to keep them even against a Cubs offense that had managed just Anthony Rizzo’s first-inning RBI double. In the sixth, Blanton was back, and Baez greeted him with a single, then stole second. And for the second straight night, Russell deposited a high slider into the bleachers.

The Cubs eventually rolled to an 8-1 lead before winning 8-4. One more win was all they needed.

“Rounding the bases, it was pretty exciting,” Russell said. “[I was] pumped up. Not only for myself but for the team -- and that little cushion that Jonny had to go forward from that. I felt really good.”

5. Dexter Fowler doubles to lead off Game 6

(WPA: 6.1)

Forget the leverage of the situation. After all the talk of Kershaws and Hills and snarks and grumkins, Fowler and the Cubs wasted no time in declaring that history would be given no quarter on this night.

Fowler scored on Kris Bryant's single, and the Cubs never looked back, shutting out the Dodgers 5-0.