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PENGUINS WIN STANLEY CUP !!!!

by Tony on 06/12/09 at 11:52 PM ET
Comments (24)

Several times over the years, I watched the highlights of the 1960 World Series Champion Pittsburgh Pirates, with their improbable victory over the New York Yankees, led by Bill Mazeroski’s home run in the bottom of the ninth.

In the locker room, they interviewed Pirates’ manager Danny Murtaugh, who was incredulous as he was trying to describe the feeling of winning the World Series, and then he said ”and against the Yankees of all teams”.

Well, that’s what I feel like tonight, after the Penguins defeated the Wings 2-1 in Game Seven to win the Stanley Cup. The Wings are the closest the NHL has to an absolute machine, but the Penguins have found a way, somehow, to defeat them four times in five games and hoist the Cup.

Max Talbot was the “unlikely” hero with both Penguins’ goals, and Marc-Andre Fleury came up huge again for the Pens with 23 saves, including a potentially Cup-saving save on Nik Lidstrom with one second remaining. Evgeni Malkin was awarded the Conn Smythe award for Playoff MVP.

It was yet another game in which the officials definitely put the whistles away, as there were only five combined penalties, with only three powerplays, none of which resulted in goals.

The Penguins also had to complete the last half of the game without Sidney Crosby, who appeared to have suffered a knee injury on a big check by Johan Franzen. Crosby only had one shift in the third period and couldn’t return after that point.

The Wings started the game as the definite aggressors, applying a steady forecheck, while conversely the Penguins seemed nervous and timid. That said, the Penguins survived the first period rush by the Wings, and it ended scoreless.

Early in the second period, the Penguins got the absolutely huge first goal of the game. Malkin deflected the puck on an attempted clearing pass that went to the stick of Talbot, who skated towards the net and fired a wrister through the five hole of Chris Osgood to give the Pens a 1-0 lead at the 1:13 mark of the second period.

Midway through the second, Chris Kunitz deflected the puck off a pinch in the Wings’ zone and shuffled the puck to Talbot, resulting in a 2-on-1 break. Talbot skated in on Osgood and fired a beautiful wrister to the top shelf that Osgood didn’t have a chance on to make it 2-0 at 10:07.

The Pens clamped down for the remainder of the second period, denying the Wings a chance to chip away at the lead.

As the time started to click down, the Wings’ pressure kept on increasing. They capitalized on their push on a one-timer by Jonathan Ericsson that Fleury got a glove on but couldn’t make the save to cut the Pens’ lead to 2-1.

The Wings’ pressure continued to the very end. With Osgood on the bench, the Wings had one last push that came very close to tying the game. A slapper from the right point was stopped by Fleury, but he left a rebound that went right to Lidstrom. Lidstrom attempted to get the puck high on Fleury, but Fleury dove out to cut the angle and made the stop as the time wound down, and the Penguins were Stanley Cup Champions.

Other notes:
- Once again, Hal Gill and Rob Scuderi led the Pens with +2. Both men are UFA’s-to-be, we’ll see if one or both are back.
- 44 hits for the Pens tonight, led by Brooks Orpik with 9.
- 25 giveaways for the Wings tonight.
- 20 blocked shots for the Pens, compared to only 3 for the Wings.
- The Pens were only 30 pct. successful in the faceoff circle tonight.

What an incredible night. STANLEY CUP CHAMPIONS !!!!

Filed in: | The Confluence | Permalink
Tags: Detroit+Red+Wings, NHL-Hockey, Pittsburgh+Penguins,

Comments

Congratulations from a Wings fan, Tony.

Feels good, doesn’t it?

Posted by Mandingo from The Garage on 06/12/09 at 10:06 PM ET

Incredible, especially beating a machine like the Wings, just incredible....

Posted by Tony F from Virginia Beach, VA on 06/12/09 at 10:08 PM ET

Congrats, Tony. I bet it’s a rush… enjoy!

Posted by Alanah McGinley from British Columbia on 06/12/09 at 10:09 PM ET

Nice to see classless Crosby skip the handshake line.

Posted by CJBear71 on 06/12/09 at 10:11 PM ET

CJBEAR..Nice to see the classless Wings fans cheer when he got hurt. Nice to see the classless Crosby hoisting the Cup in Detroit, huh?

Posted by Pensin6 on 06/12/09 at 10:13 PM ET

Dang, your boy Penisinsix is a real winner,

Congratulations to all of you Pens fans who aren’t in the midst of an overwhelming ‘roid rage.

Your guys were awesome tonight. You guys ‘Red Winged’ the Red Wings.

Great, Great win. Enjoy the summer and the Cup.

Look out for Penisinsix at the parade. He’ll probably knock your wife down and push your kid outta the way for a chance to catch Sid’s sweaty towel.

Posted by Krebstar on 06/12/09 at 10:19 PM ET

Not at all.. Tired of your half assed fans who claim to be the best there are booing a hurt player… How about your fans making sexual comments about Mario and Sid...Yes, you are a classy bunch.

Posted by Pensin6 on 06/12/09 at 10:27 PM ET

Congratulations, Tony. Enjoy every moment.

Posted by hockeychic from Denver, CO on 06/12/09 at 11:02 PM ET

Congrats Tony. She’s a bitch to win so it’s well earned and something to cherish. Have a great summer and enjoy the celebration.

Posted by OHWingsFan40 from Oregon/Bowling Green, OH on 06/12/09 at 11:16 PM ET

Amazing. I’m speechless, partially inebriated and it’s time for breakfast.

Pittsburgh Penguins, thank you for a rollercoaster season with an incredible climactic finish. May the force be with us.

Posted by Moq from Denmark on 06/12/09 at 11:18 PM ET

Nice to see classless Crosby skip the handshake line.

He was doing an interview so he came late, but he was there.

Pic

Posted by Rick on 06/12/09 at 11:37 PM ET

Congrats. The Cup belongs in the Atlantic. See you in October, boys.

Posted by Puckhead from Jersey! on 06/13/09 at 12:03 AM ET

I was at the game. Purely amazing. Not fully coherent. GO PENS!!!

Posted by NHLJeff from Boston, MA on 06/13/09 at 12:12 AM ET

What else can I possibly say in a post to properly demonstrate what our Penguins have accomplished. The odds were against us. The history was against us. The commentators were against us. In other words, outside of Pittsburgh, there were very few who thought this game seven would even occur aside from us winning it. The fact is that we did and we won.

Posted by Justin from Monroeville on 06/13/09 at 12:27 AM ET

Cue: Rivalry
Cue: Legend of magic burrito that really tastes horrible (sorry qdoba it is)
Cue: Hossa signing with a team solely based on money
Cue: Some players belated retirement: Guerin, Boucher, Satan, Sykora, Chelios, Draper, Maltby, Holmstrom...etc.

No other sport in the world is as superstitious as hockey and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Posted by stoneman from Vegas on 06/13/09 at 12:42 AM ET

Congrats, Tony. Hell of a series.

Posted by Mike Chen on 06/13/09 at 01:01 AM ET

Hey, the better, more hungry team won. No hard feelings here, well done.

And Eric Godard gets a championship ring. Fan-damn-tastic!

Support your local enforcer.

Posted by JAMESinMI on 06/13/09 at 02:16 AM ET

Absolutely incredible! Wing’s are a heck of a team, and Penguins did just enough to eek by them. I’d be perfectly fine with a rematch next year, as exciting as this was. What a great day for hockey in Pittsburgh!

Posted by penguinsfan on 06/13/09 at 06:40 AM ET

Good series. Enjoy the summer, it should be a good one.

Congratulations.

Posted by monkey from Waiting for the lambs to stop screaming on 06/13/09 at 06:51 AM ET

I was glad to see the fans at Joe Louis applaud the Penguins for their championship.
Well done.

Posted by w2j2 on 06/13/09 at 07:07 AM ET

Congratulations to the Pittsburgh Penguins on their Stanley Cup victory. This series was decided in the last second when Fleury blanked Lidstrom to win the 7th game. Enjoy your summer and see you again next season.

Posted by Lou from Detroit MI on 06/13/09 at 07:26 AM ET

Yes Tony, your headline says it all, they did Win the Stanley Cup, it wasn’t handed to them like many have said it would.

Great series and enjoy the Summer of Stanley.

Posted by Paul from Motown Area on 06/13/09 at 07:35 AM ET

First off, wow! I bet $20 on the Pens to win when I was in Vegas in March and won $300!

But I’d just like to remind everyone that at the beginning of the finals the schedule was in the Pen’s favor and it was unfair to the Wings. Despite the fact that we won the previous series in 4 and it took them 5. BTW, we lost those first 2 games.

And during those games when it looked like the Wings were in our face the entire time and wouldn’t let the Pens do anything, that was just the way the Western conference plays and how their games are called and the Pens being from the wimpy Eastern conference just couldn’t hang. But when we started playing to either match how the game was being called, or how the Wings were playing the game, then we became thugs and all the calls were in our favor. Yet we had less powerplays.

The Penguins cheated by being bad a few years ago and got sweet picks and that wasn’t fair to a perennially good team. But I don’t see any Lions fans offering to not use their first draft pick for someone mediocre. Plus in Hockey, there is a draw for who gets the first pick out of the lower seeded teams.

We also didn’t have any depth, we don’t have any hockey fans in Pittsburgh, we don’t deserve to play for the cup because Pittsburgh was in the second set of 6 teams to join the league (a 6-team league sounds so exciting!) Whatever. We won, we get the cup for a year (at least) we get the parade.

Posted by Steve-o from Pittsburgh (Oakland) on 06/13/09 at 03:49 PM ET

Finally a game where we looked like we knew what the wings were going to do before they did it. Instead of the other way around. It was awesome watching talbot with his family on the ice after the game. Yell at his mom not to drink all the champagne

Posted by elizafurnace from pgh on 06/14/09 at 08:46 AM ET

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Welcome to The Confluence, a Pittsburgh Penguins blog since 2006. Originally at Blogspot, then at MVN, The Confluence has over 1000 articles reporting Penguins news as well as jumping on my soapbox to opine constructive Penguins criticism. My posts are regularly linked by hockey websites such as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Empty Netters and Yahoo!’s Puck Daddy, and I’ve done guest blogger spots on such websites as the New York Times. I invite you to spend a little time and peruse the archives at all of the sites for some of my better work. I am a retired U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer, but don’t confuse me with my fellow Chief at A2Y.

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