Wow! What a fantastic series! What a comeback! What a game 7! I’m talking about the Stanley Cup finals. I’ve been an ardent ice hockey fan for more than 50 years. That's why I blogged "The Toughest Playoffs In All Of Sports" (5-2-09). This exciting seven-game series turned out to be a shining example of how tough it gets to win the National Hockey League championship.
The Detroit Red Wings won the first two games at home. The Pittsburgh Penguins followed that up by tying the series on their home ice. The Penguins lost game 5 in Detroit by a lopsided score of 5-0. Marc-Andre Fleury, Pittsburgh’s young goalie, had to be pulled and the chances for the Penguins to win the Stanley Cup looked very bleak indeed. But the Pens battled back to win game 6 at home by a 2-1 margin, forcing a game 7 in Detroit.
Last season, the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup by defeating the Penguins on Pittsburgh’s home ice in game 6. This time, before last night’s championship game, Detroit was 11-1 at home in the playoffs, 3-0 in this series. Detroit, a team of veterans had four players going for their fifth title in 12 seasons. Chris Osgood, their goalie, was poised to win his third title as the starting goalie.
Pittsburgh, a team of mostly young players, had only one player, Bill Guerin, who had previously won the cup. Guerin only joined the Pens at the trading deadline, having won the cup as a New Jersey Devil in 1995.
The hitting in last night’s game, as in all the other games in this series, was awesome. 5-1/2 minutes into the second period, the Pens young "phenom" and captain, Sidney "Sid the Kid" Crosby, was smashed into the boards and had to be helped to the dressing room with a leg injury. He returned for the third period but could only play for one short shift.
Pittsburgh was leading 2-0 on two second period goals scored by third-liner Maxim Talbot when Detroit scored a goal with 6:07 remaining in the third period. Detroit almost tied it with 2:14 left when a shot "clanged" off the goalie’s best friend - the crossbar of the net.
With more than a minute to go, Detroit pulled Osgood to get an extra skater on the ice. A relentless Red Wings onslaught followed with Penguin players blocking shots and Fleury turning them back. With only 6 seconds to go in the game, Detroit won a do-or-die face-off. Fleury blocked a sizzling shot on goal, then dived across to the right side of the goal crease and knocked aside a shot of the rebound that might have tied the game with just 1 second left to play. What a thrilling end to a thrilling game.
Instead of heading for the exits, most of the 20,000 disappointed Detroit fans stayed around to watch the Penguins celebrate and for the awarding of the Conn Smythe trophy and the Stanley Cup, North America’s oldest and most prized sports trophy. The Red Wings fans even applauded the traditional skate around with and kissing of the cup by all the Pittsburgh players, coaches, trainers, equipment managers and others, and principal owner Mario "Super Mario" Lemieux, who received an extra loud round of applause.
Evgeni Malkin, the Pens’ young Russian winger, deservedly won the Conn Smythe trophy as the most valuable player of the playoffs. For this game though, there can be no doubt that Marc-Andre Fleury was the most outstanding player. When the Wings threw everything at him but the kitchen sink, Fleury rose up to the task. That is not to take anything away from Crosby and the other Penguins because all of them contributed to a great teeam effort when it counted the most.
Pittsburgh won back-to-back Stanley cups in 1991 and 1992 with Lemieux, arguably the best hockey player of all time, leading the Penguins in both seasons. In 1999, Lemieux purchased the team out of bankruptcy and kept the franchise from leaving the City of Pittsburgh. Super Mario became the first person in hockey to win the Stanley Cup both as a player and as an owner. How sweet it is!
What an ending. Those last 6 seconds of game 7 could not have been any more thrilling. Two great teams battled hard to the very end and proved beyond any doubt that hockey has the toughest playoffs in all of sports.
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