The Red Wings were less than a minute away from winning the Stanley Cup at home Monday night, but were distraught when Maxime Talbot tied the game and sent it to overtime. The comeback was made complete when Petr Sykora scored the game winner on a power play in the third overtime.
Pittsburgh came home to try and send the series to a game seven, while Detroit had other ideas.
Brian Rafalski opened the scoring as the Red Wings dominated the opening period, when he put a wrist shot past Marc-Andre Fleury to give the Wings a 1-0 lead.
Valtteri Filpulla backhanded a shot past Fleury at the beginning of the second to double Detroit's lead, while Evgeni Malkin cut the score in half with his first goal of the Stanley Cup Finals, putting a blistering slap shot past Chris Osgood to put the Pens on the board.
Henrik Zetterberg snapped a shot past Fleury to give the Wings a lead that they would not relinquish. Marian Hossa deflected a slap shot from the point on a power play with less than two minutes remaining to come within one goal of the Red Wings.
With Marc-Andre Fleury on the bench for an extra attacker, the Pens threw everything they had at the net, but eventually came up short.
The final chance they had was with 1.5 seconds remaining in the game, when Sidney Crosby backhanded a shot that hit Osgood and dribbled to the goal line before Osgood swiped it away to save the Red Wings' 2008 championship.
With this win, Nicklas Lidstrom became the first European born and trained captain in NHL history to take his team to a Stanley Cup win. It was also Detroit's fourth Stanley Cup championship in the last eleven years (1997, 1998, 2002, 2008). It was also coach Mike Babcock's first Stanley Cup win. Babcock is a Jack Adams Trophy nominee for coach of the year.
Henrik Zetterberg won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP, with 13 goals and 27 points, both league leading numbers.
Commissioner Gary Bettman presented the Stanley Cup to Nicklas Lidstrom, and the Penguins' fans were very supportive, giving the Red Wings a standing ovation that they greatly deserved. The Wings' players skated around with the Cup for a fair amount of time, and went off to the locker room to celebrate as a team.
The Detroit Red Wings have dominated the National Hockey League for the past eleven seasons, as one can see by their President's Trophy win this year, and their Stanley Cup win tonight.
The Penguins played a great series, but could not match the Wings hand for hand for six games, as they were beaten by a team that just seemed to want it more.
Congratulations to the Detroit Red Wings; the 2007-2008 Stanley Cup Champions.
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4 months ago
actually as a pens fan at the game the fans were NOT giving a standing O to the wings but were showing how they are the leagues most supportive fans by chanting "LET'S GO PENS" even after it was over.
congrats and props to detroit they unfortunately manhandled my beloved penguins...
4 months ago
Congrats to the wings, they earned this win
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