The decisive moment of the match was Patric Hornqvist’s goal at 18:25 in the third period when the Swedish global somehow managed to hit the spot from an incredibly tough position. Penguins. Penguins that very well may be the greatest hockey team of the decade.
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Wayne Gretzky leads Sidney Crosby 4-3 in Stanley Cups, but the Great One didn’t win any after his 28th birthday.
The Pittsburgh Penguins won on the road again, but that didn’t make it any less sweet.
Nashville wrested momentum from the Penguins, rallying from a 0-2 series deficit to tie it 2-2, and appeared to be taking control. The Penguins captain had 27 points in 24 postseason games, all the while potentially dealing with the aftereffects of his concussion from the Washington series. Former Kelowna Rocket Colton Sissons poked the puck into the net, but just as the crowd started cheering the referee was waving the goal off. Officials huddled, but the goal was not allowed. It’s like, I can imagine this because I just lived it this year, but describing this, as I’m sure you can tell by reading this, it’s just so tough to do.
Murray also stopped Sissons on a breakaway midway through the period and also gloved a shot from Viktor Arvidsson later on. The series ended on a high note, with the clincher unquestionably the best game in the series in a 2-0 Matt Murray shutout of the Nashville Predators.
Nashville certainly wasn’t without their chances as the game wore on into the third period.
Those numbers aren’t direct comparisons, though, because the two played in different eras when the game was played differently.
There, I said it. And it’s not really that close.
Hagelin iced the game with 14 seconds left when, with Rinne out of the goal in favour of an extra attacker, he scored into the empty net.
“Our goal is to win every year”, Crosby told reporters after the game. “There was probably a lot of people thinking the same thing”.
For better or worse, individual success and team success get tangled up when evaluating a player like Crosby, and given the expectations he faced upon entering the league, winning just one title (early in his career, no less) would have been something of a knock against him.
Even if Chicago gets the much-rumored deal done to let Vegas take defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk to shed the contract of center Marcus Kruger, the Blackhawks have to do some more maneuvering to get under the cap.
“He’s now one of the best to ever play the game”, Penguins owner Mario Lemieux, a two-time Stanley Cup victor as a player, said of his former team mate.
And the victory is more than just an accomplishment to celebrate; it’s also a valuable marketing tool for Pittsburgh to attract players and off-ice staff. Nashville challenged for goalie interference, but the goal was upheld.
There have been five three-peats in National Hockey League history, and the last team to do so was the New York Islanders, when they won four titles in a row from 1980 to 1983. “What he went through a year ago and stuck with it as a team guy”.
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It’s hard to imagine that the Penguins would have won the Cup – or even advanced past the first round – had Rutherford traded Fleury at the deadline. On the other side, Predators captain Mike Fisher will have a tough decision to make. “We lost a lot of guys to injuries”. In Game 6, fans were finally treated to a goalie duel. Then things went stale, and Rutherford retired as general manager and Ron Francis took over. “I’ve never been shot up for a celebration, but I was tonight”. “I’m glad we still had the same group of guys altogether”. Roman Josi, Ryan Ellis, P.K. Subban and Mattias Ekholm form the core, and they are all strong blueliners who can also get the job done in the offensive zone. And these guys did exactly what I hoped they would do: “They got us the Cup”.
