Victory!

Superstar

What a glorious night.

I’m truly at a loss for words. As a sports fan, I’ve never experienced a more satisfying victory. I’ll be writing stuff all weekend, but let’s start with Game Seven.

A fitting end to a classic series, Game Seven is already legendary. Two great teams battled to the final horn, with Pittsburgh needing a little luck and a miraculous save from Marc-Andre Fleury in the final seconds to prevail.

It’s funny how the bounces evened out over the course of the series. The Penguins couldn’t buy a break in Games One and Two, but Zetterberg rang the pipe in Game Six, and Kronwall drew iron late in Game Seven.

And what can be said about Fleury? I couldn’t be happier for the kid. No one deserves this more than the Flower. His critics, and they are numerous, always said he couldn’t win the big game, pointing to his gaffe at World Juniors and his bouts of inconsistency to support their scurrilous charges.

Well, that’s done. It’s over. No one can ever question Fleury’s ability to win the big one. He just did. In Detroit. Against the defending Stanley Cup champs.

Fleury’s defining moment came late in Game Six when he stoned Dan Cleary. That was the pivotal moment in not only the series but his career. Fleury stood tall when his team needed it most. Talk about the soft goals and questionable stick work all you want. Fleury makes big saves in key moments to win games. That’s who he is, that’s what he does. And that’s why his name’s on the Cup.

Fleury was brilliant in Game Seven. Detroit came out flying, hitting everything that moved and generating some premier scoring chances, but the Flower didn’t rattle. He made a spectacular poke-check to deny Valtteri Filppula on what I thought was a sure goal. Just the way the play unfolded, the flow it had, it seemed destined to end up in the net. I still can’t understand how it didn’t. I’d like to show the clip, but NHL.com doesn’t have it for some reason. But here’s Fleury flashing the glove a few minutes later to rob Kirk Malby…

After weathering the storm in the first period, Fleury and the Pens started to take control in the second. They got pucks deep and fired up the forecheck. The pressure led to Brad Stuart handing the puck to Max “Superstar” Talbot, who made a nifty little hesitation move before slipping a shot between Chris Osgood’s pads for the 1-0 lead.

Obviously, getting the first goal had colossal significance. But the good times didn’t last. Only four minutes later, disaster struck.

Chris Kunitz chipped a puck up the wall, and Kid Crosby barely touched it on its way to center. Keep in mind, Crosby’s touch came on Pittsburgh side of the blue line. That didn’t stop Johan Franzen from finishing a hip check on him out near center red, a full two seconds and some 20 feet after Crosby tipped the puck.

How is that not interference?!? His left knee smashed, Crosby could barely make it off the ice. Worse yet, the classy Detroit crowd cheered the injury, providing the Wings with a surge of emotion. A mere 46 seconds later, before the Pens could even recover from seeing their hobbled captain limping from the field of battle, Hal Gill got whistled for holding. The Stanley Cup dreams were crumbling.

This was the turning point. The crucible to end all crucibles. Lesser teams would have folded. Not these Penguins. They murdered the penalty without giving the Wings a sniff of the net. Talbot, Craig Adams, Brooks Orpik, Sergei Gonchar, Matt Cooke, Jordan Staal, Mark Eaton, and Rob Scuderi did the honors.

The controlled kill silenced the Detroit crowd and energized the Pens. Not long after, Stuart made another mistake, stepping up to hold the line against Kunitz. The gritty Penguin winger managed to sweep the puck ahead to create a two-on-one for Talbot and Tyler Kennedy. Talbot kept the puck the whole way, racing in on left wing and lacing a wrist shot over Osgood’s glove.

Incredible shot by Talbot. Going top right corner from the left circle like that is the toughest shot to make for a lefty. It has to be perfect. And Talbot buried it. But what do you expect from a superstar like him? Chicka chicka woo.

Detroit made a ferocious push at the end of the second. The Pens were hanging on for dear life and only another remarkable save from Fleury in the final seconds prevented Zetterberg from halving the 2-0 lead.

Pittsburgh went into full rope-a-dope mode in period three. Crosby returned to the bench and tried to take one shift with about 10 minutes left, even winning the draw, but he simply couldn’t skate. Without Crosby around to eat minutes and set the pace, the undermanned Penguins gave up the forecheck and sat back to try and protect the lead.

It worked until 13:53. That’s when the Pens got hemmed up in their own zone and Nicklas Lidstrom fired the puck from the left boards all the way across to Jonathan Ericsson at the right point. Ericsson rocketed a one-timer into the top right corner over Fleury’s glove. Yes, sir, the Pens like to make it fun.

Of course, the first thought that went through my mind was, “Here we go again.” While Ericsson deserves a ton of credit -- one-timing an 80-foot pass isn’t exactly easy -- the goal came out of nowhere. It wasn’t exactly a great scoring chance. Tough to call it soft. The puck knuckled and dipped and still somehow found the corner. If it was a clean drive, Fleury eats it up with the glove. It’s just one of those things.

But it planted the seed. That insidious hint of doubt. And it brought the Joe Louis crowd to life. The clock couldn’t tick fast enough. The first 10 minutes of the period sprinted by, but the final six took forever. Three stoppages in the final minute, not to mention two false faceoffs, only prolonged the agony.

In the end, it came down to a draw in the right circle of the Pittsburgh zone with 6.5 seconds remaining on the clock. Surprisingly, Dan Bylsma elected not to call his timeout. He left it up to fate.

Staal, Talbot, Adams, Scuderi, and Gill against Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Franzen, Holmstrom, Lidstrom and Rafalski.

With Crosby unavailable for the draw, Zetterberg beat Staal and won the puck back to Rafalski at the right point. Rafalski’s shot hit Gill on the way to the net and fell right at the feet of Zetterberg, who ripped a low wrister on net. Fleury went butterfly and got it with the right pad, but the rebound kicked into open ice in the left circle.

In a moment eerily similar to Mario Lemieux’s game-winner on Ed Belfour in the waning seconds of Game One of the 1992 Finals, Lidstrom swooped in and pounced on the loose biscuit. Fleury shuffled across on his knees and lunged chest-first to smother the shot.

Unbelievable.

No better way to end it than with Fleury, the target of so much ridicule, coming up with two enormous saves, first on Zetterberg and then on Lidstrom. That’s what champions are made of.

HANDHSAKE LINE
Kid Crosby is already catching grief for being late to the handshake line. Ridiculous.

He wasn’t disrespecting the Wings. If anything, the Wings disrespected him. Nicklas Lidstrom showed the class of a champion, waiting for Sid to come to him, but I guess he got tired and split. He does have a fractured Charlie Brown. Draper, Hossa, and a slew of other Wings bailed. Once Crosby realized what was going on, he hustled over to shake hands with Zetterberg, Osgood, Babcock, and everybody else.

Hey, guess what, Wings? You lost. You wait for the winners. The winners don’t hurry up for you. Crosby wasn’t being a jerk. He was celebrating with friends and family. It’s his moment. Not Detroit’s. He’s never won a Stanley Cup before. But don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll master the intricacies of the victorious post-Cup handshake. He’s going to have lots of practice.

HOW’S IT FEEL, HOSSA?
I intentionally avoided ripping Marian Hossa throughout the series. And I’m not going to bury the guy now. But if anyone ever doubts it’s a fair and just universe, let Hossa’s story guide you true.

I mean, what kind of a man loses to a team in the Stanley Cup Finals, takes less money to sign with that team, and then insults his former teammates on the way out the door? Hossa is a… no, I’m going to be gracious in victory.

Hossa knows what he did. Now he’s going to have to live with it. And the rest of us can live with this…

AP Photo

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