The Pittsburgh Penguins claimed their revenge and the Stanley Cup with a nervy 2-1 Game Seven win over the Detroit Red Wings on Friday.
The Penguins, who lost the Cup to the Red Wings in six games a year ago, join the 1971 Montreal Canadiens as the only team to drop the opening two games of a final on the road and then claw their way back to win the title.
Maxime Talbot, a grinder with a knack for scoring big goals, tallied twice in the second period while goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury answered his critics with a solid 23-save effort as the Penguins celebrated their third Stanley Cup and first since 1992.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“You score big goals through your career, it feels like it stays with you and people talk about it,” Talbot told reporters. “Now you start believing it and you just say to yourself you’re that type of player.”
Outside a playoff spot in February, the march of the Penguins began with an 18-3-4 run to close out the regular season and continued with four grueling best-of-seven playoff series to clasp the Cup that slipped through their fingers last season.
The humbled Penguins watched the Red Wings raise the Cup last year and parade it around the Joe Louis Arena, but on Friday it was Pittsburgh’s turn to celebrate.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Captain Sidney Crosby accepted the Stanley Cup from NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and hoisted it high above his head while his teammates embraced each other and cheered.
“It’s a dream come true, everything you imagine and more,” said Crosby, who did not play most of the third period after a crunching hit sent him to the dressing room late in the second. “It means so much, all the sacrifices that people make so you can get to this point, my parents, the coaches who helped me along the way.”
After winning the Cup last year, the Red Wings had made Joe Louis Arena a virtual fortress and had lost only once in 12 home playoff games prior to Friday’s Game Seven.
Home teams had also prevailed in 12 out of 14 times the Cup finals were decided in the winner-take-all Game Seven.
But while history favored the Red Wings, destiny was riding with the Penguins.
With Pittsburgh clinging to a 2-1 lead, the Red Wings Niklas Kronwall rattled a shot off the crossbar with just two minutes to play.
Nicklas Lidstrom was then denied a last-gasp equalizer when Fleury dove across the crease in the final seconds to make a spectacular save.
The aging Joe Louis Arena crackled with excitement as the Red Wings took to the ice for their first Game Seven final in 54 years, a squid splattering onto the ice just prior to the opening faceoff in what as become a Motor City hockey tradition.
Fleury, chased from Game Five after surrendering four second period goals in a 5-0 blowout, was tested early as the Red Wings came out flying, tapping into the energy of a raucous capacity crowd that included former boxing champ Muhammad Ali.
Wearing a Red Wings jersey, Ali was in Detroit’s corner, but it was the Penguins who landed the first blow just 73 seconds into the second when Talbot intercepted a clearing pass and snapped the puck past Chris Osgood.
Talbot doubled Pittsburgh’s advantage midway through the period, breaking in on a two-on-one then crushing a slap shot that whizzed by Osgood’s glove into the top corner.
But the Red Wings weren’t about to surrender their crown without a fight.
Rookie Jonathan Ericsson blasted a shot from the point past Fleury with just over six minutes to set up a dramatic finish.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but