The Stanley Cup Final 2009 Game Seven: Pittsburgh at Detroit

After a lively warmup—the period starts.

Daniel Cleary—Henrik Zetterberg—Pavel Datsyuk versus Sidney Crosby—Bill Guerin—Chris Kunitz. Detroit starts out strong and roughs up the Penguins early. Every line on each team has played before three minutes have passed.

The Penguins are on their heels, struggling just to hold on yet five minutes in, you can see the Red Wings tiring.

Datsyuk pulls the puck around Orpik, but loses it.

For the first time in the series we see the Penguins trying to slow the game down and set things up.

Mohammad Ali waved to fans wearing his Red Wings jersey after the commercial break.

Datsyuk sets up Zetterberg who fumbles the puck. Tyler Kennedy drives in, and can't get a good shot, but sets up a few opportunities that ends up seeing Jonathan Ericsson kicking the puck to Osgood so he can cover.

Marc-Andre Fleury makes a tough bouncing puck save. Niklas Kronwall hits Max Talbot in the open ice (no puck—no call) but Brad Stuart takes a foolish slashing penalty. Detroit is lucky to only be one-man down.

The Penguins pour it on and hold Detroit in their zone, but Osgood stays solid. Detroit gets away with a cross-check from behind, which sets up a clearing of the puck after being hemmed in for 100 seconds.

Crosby sends a rolling puck across the crease to Evgani Malkin that bounces high over his stick but the Penguins keep the momentum up while Osgood continues to impress.

Zetterberg coughs up the puck to Kunitz, but Kunitz tosses the puck into the Wings bench. The commercial break kills the momentum and sees a more even-back and forth finale to the period. In it we saw Osgood make a couple easy saves and Fleury make a few highlight saves.

Period Stars: Osgood, Fleury, Lebda
Period Goofs: Rafalski, Zetterberg, Maltby

Pittsburgh-0 Detroit-0

Talbot skates hard, picks up a turnover from Stuart and beats Osgood early.

As if to balance things out, they give Jordan Staal a weak hooking call—then Tomas Holmstrom interferes with a Penguins player in front of Fleury, also an arguable call, except Holmstrom stuck the foot out as he went down to trip the Penguins player, to make it four on four.

Osgood makes a big stop on Malkin.

The referees miss an errant Detroit high stick. Fleury makes an excellent save that grants Pittsburgh a rush via Matt Cooke that Osgood stops. Guerin slowly plays the puck and takes a long shot that Osgood turns aside.

Crosby is hurt by a bad hit from Johan Franzen and hobbles to the bench and to the dressing room. Franzen lined that up well to catch the knee and take him out.

Hal Gill goes to the box for holding the stick. Fleury makes a game-saving save to finish out the penalty.

Talbot gets a two on one with Kennedy but puts the puck in the far top corner himself. Osgood should have had this puck. He tried the bait and snag with the glove side but was far too slow.

Darren Helm lined up and hit Malkin knee on knee-no call.

Datsyuk makes another great move and centre's the puck in front of Fleury, but no one stepped up. Later Datsyuk sets up Zetterberg, but Cleary deflects it wide. Fleury makes a save off a Niklas Lidstrom point shot. Marian Hossa lines up Malkin and misses him-hitting the boards hard.

Detroit puts on a clinic and Fleury gets a few lucky bounces—including a shot he thought he had, but passed through him. Datsyuk makes some great passes in the offensive zone, but no one else does anything with the puck. Crosby did not return this period.

Period Stars: Fleury, Talbot, Franzen, Helm
Period Goofs: Samuelsson, Stuart, Rafalski, Lidstrom

Pittsburgh-2 Detroit-0

Crosby has returned for the third, but is obviously limping a bit. Hossa has been moved on a line with Datsyuk.

Detroit runs the offense with lead passes, but fails to get any real scoring opportunities in the first few minutes. They're playing calmly and effectively on defense.

Mark Eaton gets called for tripping as Samuelsson dives.

Crosby has not hit the ice yet and looks to be in pain on the bench. Datsyuk runs the power play but has no real support from his team mates and the advantage ends.

Datsyuk makes a great rush and Brooks Orpik cleanly wipes him out of the play with Holmstrom sitting in front of the net holding his empty stick.

Detroit makes a rush and all five skaters are physically stopped at the Pittsburgh blue line. While the Pens have shown no offense, Detroit has not been able to pin them in their zone.

Orpik levels Zetterberg.

Halfway through the period Crosby debates with his coach and steps on the ice. He has a slow shift, but makes it. Pittsburgh is just playing one man in.

Crosby is trying to skate off his injury, but it's obvious he can't.

With seven minutes left, the Penguins pick it up and the game starts going back and forth. Ericsson pops off the bench to replace Lidstrom and a cross ice pass to him tricks Fleury and goes in.

Zetterberg sends Franzen a lead pass, but he shoots from the outside and misses. Each team has kicked it up a notch. Jiri Hudler tries to turn his back to an incoming Orpick, but Orpick still catches him with a clean check.

Holmstrom has a great scoring chance surprising the Penguins defense, but Fleury stands on his head.

Three minutes left.

Detroit has trouble getting out of their own zone at first, but some good work by Kronwall gets the puck pinned into the Penguins zone. Kronwall hits the post with the puck and it bounces out of the zone.

Datsyuk again controls the puck but Hossa totally misreads him and the puck leaves the zone.

Detroit calls a time out. The crowd is silent, Osgood is pulled with just over a minute to play.

Zetterberg goes offside.

Fleury makes an easy save with ten seconds to go. The faceoff is to his left. Staal vs. Zetterberg and Zetterberg wins. Lidstrom gets a chance and Fleury leaps across and saves the game. Detroit looks on in disbelief.

Period Stars: Datsyuk, Orpik, Kronwall
Period Goofs: Zetterberg

Pittsburgh-2 Detroit-1

Reminiscent of the New Jersey-Detroit 1995 Finals where a rushing, fast team took on a defensive puck control team. This time, the rushing, fast team won out over the defensive puck control team. Detroit even ruled the faceoff circle. Honestly, the hockey wasn't the best, but even so, it was a fun series.

Game Stars: Fleury, Talbot, Datsyuk
Game Goofs: Zetterberg, Rafalski, Samuelsson

Pittsburgh-2 Detroit-1

An excited Pittsburgh wins the franchise's third Stanley Cup. Marc-Andre Fleury showed that he was a clutch goalie.

The teams shake hands. Talbot and Hossa have a friendly communication. Osgood also gets a lot of respect from the Pittsburgh players. The crowd yells at the Penguins for taking so long to shake hands.

Conn Smythe goes to, Evgani Malkin.

The Stanley Cup is carried out and given to Sidney Crosby (the youngest NHL Captain to hoist the Cup) as the crowd boos. Each player from the Penguins carries the Cup and every one kisses it. Fleury actually brings the few Penguins fans to their feet to drown out the distaste of the Detroit fans when he hoists the Cup.

Ron MacLean interviewed Crosby, bring the whole TV casting down to a crawl, while he asked inane questions before he goes on to harass Malkin. During the interview, Malkin cheered as Mario Lemieux came down to hoist the Cup(third ever, but first as owner), which gives Malkin the excuse he needs to ditch MacLean.

Series Stars: Fleury, Staal, Holmstrom
Honourary Mentions to: Datsyuk, Talbot, Orpik, Helm