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Presse Canadienne Les Red Wings de Detroit n’ont pas été en mesure de réussir l’exploit
devant leurs fidèles partisans lors match no 5, mais ils ont finalement
mis la main sur la 11e coupe Stanley de leur histoire mercredi à
Pittsburgh.
Henrik Zetterberg, qui a marqué son 13e but et récolté sa 14e passe des
séries, a reçu le trophée Conn Smythe remis au joueur par excellence des
éliminatoires.
« C’est un grand honneur », a déclaré Zetterberg. « Nous formons une
grande équipe. Tout le monde a vraiment mis l’épaule à la roue. »
Le défenseur Nicklas Lidstrom est également devenu le premier capitaine
européen de l’histoire à soulever la coupe Stanley.
 Pavel
Datsyuk et Niklas Kronwall ont obtenu deux aides chacun et les Red Wings
ont vaincu les Penguins 3-2 pour remporter la série finale de la coupe
Stanley en six rencontres.
Brian Rafalski et Valtteri Filppula ont inscrit les autres buts sur les
Red Wings, qui mettent la main sur le précieux trophée pour la première
fois depuis 2002 et pour la quatrième fois en 11 ans.
Chris Osgood a repoussé 20 des 22 rondelles dirigées vers
lui devant la cage de Detroit.
Evgeni Malkin et Marian Hossa ont assuré la réplique des Penguins,
tandis que Marc-André Fleury a réussi 27 arrêts.
Départ canon des Red Wings
Après avoir disputé un peu plus de cinq périodes lundi à Detroit, les
Red Wings ont pris d’assaut le territoire des Penguins dès les premières
secondes de jeu.
Les Red Wings ont profité de l’indiscipline des Penguins
pour marquer le premier but de la rencontre, le tir de la pointe de
Rafalski déviant sur le défenseur Hal Gill avant de terminer sa course
dans le fond du filet derrière Fleury.
Les Penguins ont ensuite obtenu une excellente chance de créer l’égalité
un peu plus de trois minutes plus tard, mais ils ont été incapables de
profiter d’une supériorité numérique de deux hommes.
Detroit a doublé son avance à mi-chemin en deuxième période, Filppula
récupérant un retour de lancer de Mikael Samuelsson.
Malkin a toutefois permis à Pittsburgh de retraiter au vestiaire avec un
retard d’un but, son tir frappé de la pointe se faufilant entre les
jambières d’Osgood à 15:26 pendant que Datsyuk était au cachot.
Une bourde de Fleury a ensuite permis aux Red Wings de reprendre une
priorité de deux buts, poussant lui-même dans le fond du filet un tir du
poignet de Zetterberg qu’il n’avait pas été en mesure de maîtriser
complètement.
Hossa s’est finalement assuré de faire durer le suspense en faisant
dévier un lancer de la pointe de Sergei Gonchar pendant l’unique
supériorité numérique du dernier tiers.
================================================ NHL.com The Stanley Cup is returning to “Hockeytown!”
The Detroit Red Wings,
stunned to have lost Game 5 at home in triple overtime, played a perfect
road game Wednesday night at Mellon Arena, defeating the Pittsburgh Penguins,
3-2, in Game 6 of the 2008 Stanley Cup Final to go wire-to-wire as the
best team in the National Hockey League this season.
 “It's never easy,” Wings goalie
Chris Osgood said. “Toughest trophy in sports to win; it lives for
that name every year, that nickname. It was difficult, again. Pittsburgh
is a great young team … gave us all we could handle. Probably one of the
most difficult series I've played in a while. They have a talented team.
They held on right to the end again. They kept pushing us still.”
Henrik Zetterberg was named the winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy as
the Most Valuable Player of the postseason and defenseman
Nicklas Lidstrom became the first European captain to lift the
Stanley Cup aloft.
“It felt great being the first guy to touch the Cup on our team,” the
classy Lidstrom said. “Otherwise it felt the same as winning the
previous ones, where you're so happy with the end result. You start
training camp with a goal, and that is to win the Stanley Cup.
“You talk about it throughout the season and the way you have to play to
be able to be successful in the playoffs,” Lidstrom said. “And we had a
good regular season, and we were able to carry that into the playoffs,
too, and so that's something I'm more proud the way the team played in
the playoffs, too. It was a tough loss last year against Anaheim in the
conference finals, but most of the guys were on that team last year. And
this time around, I thought the team really responded well to some of
the adversity we faced throughout the run.”
The Wings won the Presidents’ Trophy for the best record
in the regular season and proved to be the best team in the postseason
as well, utilizing the smart, selfless brand of puck-possession hockey
that has become the trademark of coach Mike Babcock.
“I probably haven't come to grips with that,” Babcock said when asked
his emotions after winning his first Stanley Cup. “But to be able to
share this journey with the guys and to be able to share it with the
city of Detroit, and obviously my family, that's very emotional. And I'm
sure I'm going to have some emotional moments in the next week just
thinking about it. But to have your name on the Stanley Cup, pretty
special.
“The
interesting thing is when you're playing in the Stanley Cup Final like
this and it's a closeout game, the emotion on your bench is so much more
than you've had to deal with,” he said. “Getting guys on and off the ice
is more difficult, and yet we have a real committed group.
“Nicklas
Lidstrom, in my opinion, is a phenomenal leader and captain with his
poise and his skill. And then the support group in (Chris) Chelios and
(Kris) Draper. And (Pavel) Datsyuk and (Henrik) Zetterberg, for their
leadership. You know, we have a very special team, and we're thrilled to
be in this situation, obviously.”
The Wings last won the Cup in 2002, and prior to that in 1997 and ’98.
 Brian Rafalski,
Valtteri Filppula and Zetterberg scored for the Red Wings in Game 6,
offsetting Penguins’ goals from
Evgeni Malkin and
Marian Hossa, whose power-play goal at 18:33 of the third period
closed the gap to just one goal. It created a wild battle to the final
buzzer with the Wings staving off one last drive by Hossa, who sent the
puck skittering across the Detroit goal line as time expired.
“It was chaotic the last 40 seconds,” Wings goalie
Chris Osgood said. “We had it out of the zone with 10 seconds left,
and they made a great play. They have a really good team. Crosby was
flying. I knew it was a good backhander (by Hossa). I tried to get as
far out as I could, and it ended up hitting my arm. I think time had run
out before it started rolling over the side of the net. I was happy to
see the ref yell time was up when I looked up.”
And the Red Wings all know how vital Osgood’s play was. He replaced an
ineffective
Dominik Hasek in the first round and never looked back.
“I think Ozzie is a fantastic story,” Babcock said. “You talk about us,
but when you pull your goalie in the first round of the Stanley Cup
Playoffs, that usually means you're going fishing in about three days,
and not 14 more wins or whatever we needed to get it done. You gotta
give him a lot of credit. He sat in my office at my house three years
ago or two years ago, I guess, after the season and talked about
reinventing himself and finding a way, and he did.
“He learned how to butterfly, and he's improved his game,” Babcock said.
“And he's now back as one of the top goalies in the League because of
his mental toughness and his stick-to-it-iveness. And I think he showed
that in bouncing back and winning tonight.”
Wing after Wing spoke of the team’s experience and ability to battle
back. But none put it better than Lidstrom.
“I think experience has a lot to do with that,” Lidstrom said. “We have
some young players, but when you have some players that have been
through it before, they know what to expect. And I think that gives the
whole team some calmness, too, that we're not going to panic. We're
going to go out there and try to play our system and play, stick to our
game plan. But the main thing is that we didn't get rattled. I thought
we looked a little tentative in Game 5, in that first period in Game 5.
You talk about not thinking ahead and kind of put all the distractions
away, but it's in the back of your mind, they're still there a little
bit.
“I think that showed in Game 5, in the first period. Once we got going,
we played a lot better in that game. But losing that in triple overtime,
I thought the team did a good job of putting that behind us. Coming here
yesterday on the plane everybody was relaxed. We felt confident as a
group. And I felt like that showed in that first period, too, the way we
played in the first period tonight.”
The loss was a bitter pill for the Penguins, who had rallied to win Game
5 in dramatic fashion in triple overtime to force another game in
Pittsburgh.
“We probably didn’t play as well as we wanted to there,”
Sidney Crosby said of losing Games 1 and 2 in Detroit. “We knew we
could step up our game a bit. Coming back here we were confident we
could get back in the series. Winning that last one in Detroit
definitely gave us momentum coming back here. We just couldn’t get that
one to get it back there.
“We wanted to leave it all out there,” Crosby said. “We just came up
short. It’s pretty tough. It’s not a fun time. We have to remember this
feeling for sure.”
“I'm almost speechless,” Penguins coach Michel Therrien said. “It's
tough. We were that close. It is really tough, because this is a group
that gave what they got. They deserve a lot of respect. We got beat by
a quality team. They showed it all through the regular season and
through the playoffs. They played really well. They were tough to play
against, and the hockey god was not on our side tonight. But they
deserved to win the Stanley Cup.” The Wings stunned the
big crowd into silence at 7:36 of the third period when Zetterberg
scored to make it 3-1. Gaining the Pittsburgh zone, Zetterberg took a
wrist shot from the left circle with
Sergei Gonchar on him. The puck got through and
Marc-Andre Fleury dropped to his knees, apparently stopping the puck
to the point where some of the Pens held up, expecting a faceoff.
But the puck had trickled through Fleury and was rolling toward the net.
Fleury realized the puck was free and dropped to the ice, inadvertently
sending the puck across the goal line. Referee Marc Joannette was right
behind the net on the play and immediately signaled the goal that made
it 3-1 for Detroit.
The Wings dominated play in the third period, shooting holes in the
theory that they would be the tired team after Monday’s triple-overtime
loss. But the Wings had plenty of energy and at one point had a 12-1
lead in shots. Time and again, the Wings made heady plays in their zone
to force shots wide and then get the puck deep, eating up chunks of
clock that proved to be every bit as detrimental to the Pens as the
score.
“Someone said to me here earlier, you turned your best offensive players
into checkers,” Babcock said of the strong two-way play of Zetterberg
and Datsyuk. “I never did that. They're just very good both ways, and
deliver offensively. And that's the philosophy I have, anyway. I believe
if the people that are playing against the best people can score, they
gotta worry about them.
“If you've got guys who don't score playing against those people, they
can just let it go on offense all the time. ‘Z’ and Pavel are two of the
best players in the world. And when you put Rafalski and Nick on the ice
with them, I mean, that's a pretty special group. And Crosby and Hossa
gave us all we could handle, and yet it was great to see us, obviously,
get this done.”
Rafalski got the Red Wings on the scoreboard early, netting a power-play
goal at 5:03 of the first period after Pittsburgh defenseman
Darryl Sydor had been boxed for interference on
Kirk Maltby at 4:17.
The Penguins’ inability to clear the puck cost them dearly on this goal,
as Pittsburgh had a couple opportunities to get the puck out of their
end, but failed each time. Rafalski moved into the left faceoff circle
and then sent a rising shot on the Penguins’ net that deflected home off
the right leg of Pittsburgh defenseman
Hal Gill.
Zetterberg got the primary assist, making the goal happen with a sharp
pass from the right circle to Rafalski. Datsyuk also got an assist, but
Tomas Holmstrom was equally deserving, having done good work keeping
the puck alive in the Pittsburgh zone.
The Wings got into penalty trouble when
Dallas Drake was called for charging at 8:28 and Draper was called
for roughing Gonchar up high at 8:55, giving the Pens a 5-on-3 advantage
for 1:33.
But as they did in a Game 4 win, the Red Wings’ penalty killers came up
huge, limiting the Penguins to a couple long drives while keeping the
front of their net open for Osgood to see the plays. The
Penguins got a scare early in the second period when Crosby was
plastered against the boards on a
Brad Stuart hit with the Pens on a power play. Unsteady, Crosby got
to the bench, collected himself and returned to action.
Filppula made it 2-0 Detroit at 8:07, scoring on a shot Fleury would
love to have back.
Mikael Samuelsson gained the Pittsburgh end and moved to the right
circle, taking a wrist shot instead of indulging in a slapper. Fleury
kicked the rebound out in front and Filppula, tied up with
Brooks Orpik, got his stick free and backhanded the shot into the
Penguin net.
The Pens almost broke through with 6:25 left when
Maxime Talbot was stopped by Osgood from the slot, but left the
rebound to
Gary Roberts. Osgood stopped Roberts’ first drive and then made a
remarkable save with the glove portion of his blocker to prevent the
rebound from going in.
The Detroit goalie could do nothing about Malkin’s power-play goal at
15:26 that got the Pens on the board. Taking a Crosby pass just off the
dot of the left circle, Malkin had plenty of room and took his time,
driving a heavy shot between Osgood’s pads to halve the Detroit lead.
“Obviously, we were really nervous in our first game,” Therrien said.
“And they were uncomfortable, and with good reason; it's a lot to demand
to those young kids to play in a Stanley Cup Final. And I thought we
learned quick, because after Game 3 we started to play our game. They
were tight games, could go both ways. Tonight, this game could have gone
both ways as well.
“You learn a lot in those situations,” Therrien said. “And that's going
to make us stronger in the future.” |
