When Pittsburgh captain Sidney Crosby blocked a shot from San Jose Sharks defenceman Marc-Edouard Vlasic and then pushed the puck to linemate Patric Hornqvist for an empty-net goal on Sunday night, the Pittsburgh Penguins clinched their fourth Stanley Cup in 25 years.
Advertisement
Murray matched a rookie post-season record with his 15th win in Game 6, while Sheary scored a pair of goals in the final, including the overtime victor in Game 2.
Sidney Crosby was rewarded for his strong postseason with the Pittsburgh Penguins by winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as Stanley Cup Playoff MVP. After making the Cup final in his third and fourth seasons in the National Hockey League, winning it all in his second trip in 2009, Crosby and the Penguins have experienced mostly disappointments with the team making early playoff exits and Crosby missing nearly an entire season and a half because of concussions.
It’s been a long road here for Phil Kessel, but finally, after years of failed expectations in Toronto, he can call himself a Stanley Cup champion.
Their efforts were rewarded when Logan Couture extended his playoff scoring lead when he snapped the puck between Murray’s pads. Letang had the eventual game victor that he put past Sharks goaltender Martin Jones off of a feed from Sydney Crosby.
Sharks coach Peter DeBoer said that Pittsburgh’s speed was only part of its strength. “I’m so proud of all these guys”.
For much of his 10-year career, Phil Kessel has been a seemingly easy target.When Kessel returned to TD Garden in late October of 2010, Bruins fans chanted “Thank You Kessel!” following a Tyler Seguin score (Seguin was drafted with the first-round pick acquired in the Kessel trade).
Martin Jones refused to take any of the credit for helping get San Jose within two wins of raising the Stanley Cup. He, too, posted a sterling mark (18-3-4) as the Penguins scored in droves, before eventually guiding the Penguins to their third Stanley Cup.
In Abel’s case, he won in 1943 and 1950; for Crosby, he won in 2009 and again this year.
So two out of the four Stanley Cup titles that were won by the Pittsburgh Penguins were with Rick Tocchet in 1992 and 2016. “We got together as a team and came together”.
Jones was off the charts last week in Game 5 in Pittsburgh, stopping 44 shots as the Sharks dodged elimination and brought the series back to San Jose. “We worked for each other, played for each other, and we ended up getting it done”.
In 53 regular season games with the Penguins, Daley tallied 6 goals and 22 points. Couture joined Philadelphia’s Daniel Briere (2010), Malkin (2009) and Crosby (2009) as the only players in the past 20 years with 30 points in a postseason.
“I am just trying to enjoy the moment”, said Murray.
“As a team we really settled down after a tough start but we came back and stayed resilient”, Murray said.
It’s a tradition with roots almost as deep as the post-series handshake line: Players reveal the bevy of injuries they played through in the postseason in the hopes of taking a lap with the Stanley Cup raised over their head. I think if you look at how we got here as far as a group and what happened, ” Crosby said before the final. I thought we had a lot of fight.
Advertisement
Pittsburgh’s Brian Dumoulin opened the scoring with a first period power play goal. “It was up to the guys to do something with it”, Crosby said.
