Crosby Keeps Hope Alive
By Matt Valentine
Being dominated is not something these Pittsburgh Penguins were familiar with until this Stanley Cup matchup with the Detroit Red Wings. And dominated is the most affable term one can use when describing the Penguins play in this series to date. Once again it looked like the domination would continue as the Wings were controlling puck possession and out shooting the hapless Penguins 9-1 in front of the home crowd at Mellon Arena for Game 3 Wednesday night.
That is until the teams captain, face of the franchise, and face of the NHL, Sidney Crosby, posted the teams first goal in the series and snapped his teams scoring drought that stood at 137 minutes and 25 seconds.
It came from a rare mistake by Detroit’s defense, when Brad Staurt sent an errant pass careening off the skate of forward Henrik Zetterberg and landing firmly on the stick of Penguins forward Marian Hossa. Hossa took a few steps ripped a shot that deflected off of Staurt’s skate and found its way to Crosby’s stick. Crosby took advantage of the fortunate breal and slipped a shot through the pads of Detroit goaltender Chris Osgood sparking life into his once dying team.
Mellon Arena and I’m guessing most everyone in the NHL’s front office erupted with joy, and a series that once looked like a foregone conclusion was finally put into doubt.
Crosby continued to announce his teams late arrival to the series, by notching a power play goal, his second of the night at 2:34 of the second period, putting his team ahead 2-0. Later in the second Johan Franzen made things interesting by scoring his 13th goal of the playoffs and closing the gap to one goal.
The third period was by far the most exciting of the series and perhaps the entire playoffs. The game was played with a flow that rendered the referees whistles useless and hard hitting which had been a rarity in this series became the norm.
During one particularly intense stretch two bone crunching checks were laid at opposite ends of the ice, but it was the Wings who ended up paying the ultimate price surrendering a third goal when Penguins winger Adam Hall banked a shot off the back of Chris Osgood’s leg and scored the game clinching third goal for the Pens.
Mikael Samuelsson would score with 5 minutes and change remaining in the third to cast a measure of doubt on the game, and fray the nerves of the already tense Pittsburgh fans. However, the Penguins played strong defense for the remainder of the game, and did not allow the Wings to pull Osgood to gain the man advantage.
The scoreboard could not have read better for Penguins fans, or for that fact the entire NHL, with the 3-2 Pittsburgh victory changing the entire dynamic of the series which comes back to the Igloo for Game 5.
The Penguins can take a number of positives from this game. The fact that they finally cracked the steel trap that has been Chris Osgood, the fact that they remain undefeated at home, and the fact that the next game will be played at home as well. But perhaps the most important fact, is that it was their young superstar captain Sid the Kid, that put them in the position to do so.
