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Sunday, 31 May 2009 18:11

Written by Seth Rorabaugh

THIRD PERIOD

18:21: Crosby comes around the back of the net with the puck. He shoots to the far side. It his the far post and bounces off and skids along the goal line behind Osgood. Crosby appears to get it back and shoots to the far side again. Zetterberg is on his stomach in the crease and appears to keep it out. Officials review the play. It's impossible to tell if that puck crossed the goal line. The review confirms the non-goal call. More bad bounces for the Penguins. Did Zetterberg get away with covering the puck again?

17:13: That might've done it. Justin Abdelkader moves into the offensive zone with the puck against Gill and Scuderi. Each Penguins' defenseman gets a piece of hte puck and tip it away momentarily from Abdelkader. Abdelkader cuts across the crease and managers to maintain possession despite the poke checks from Gill and Scuderi.  He then whips a wild wrister at to the far side that Fleury just isn't prepared for. It beats him far on the glove side. He didn't even seem to make a play for the puck there. Ouch. Not a good goal to give up even if he was screened. The goal was unassisted. Watch Detroit choke the life out of the rest of this game. Holmstrom and Hossa get assists. Red Wings 3, Penguins 1.

16:18: "FLerrrrrr..... Eeeee..... Flerrrrr.... Eeeeee....."

15:10: Stuart cranks a slapper from the right point that gets deflected wide.

14:55: "FLerrrrrr..... Eeeee..... Flerrrrr.... Eeeeee....."

14:11: Guerin cracks Darren Helm with a big hit at center ice. Helm looses his stick, regains it and skates to the bench.

13:29: Zetterberg takes a tumble over Scuderi in the neutral zone.

11:27: "LET'S-GO RED-WINGS!!!! (clap, clap, clap) LET'S-GO RED-WINGS!!!! (clap, clap, clap)"

9:20: Lidstrom distributes a pass to Helm on the left wing, Helm moves into the offensive zone and cranks a slapper that appears to get deflected wide.

9:06: Dupuis controls the puck behind the Detroit net and dishes a feed to Satan who cracks a shot wide.

8:35: Gill holds up Hossa who is chasing a puck in the corner. No call. Remember the "new" NHL?

7:13: Hossa moves behind the Penguins' net, comes around the left side and backhands a shot at the net. Fleury fights it off.

6:32: Crosby moves into the offensive zone with speed, dekes by a defender and snaps off a wrister to the far side that Osgood stick his left foot out and boots away. Huge save by Osgood.

6:18: "Ozzzzzz-EEEEEE! Ozzzzz-EEEEEE!"

4:29: Dupuis is dropped behind the Detroit net by Lidstrom while battling for a puck.

3:29: Crosby jumps on a loose puck along the boards and swats a rising wrister on net. Osgood hops up to fight it off.

2:38: Dupuis moves up the right wing and as he enters the zone he attempts to dump the puck in. Lidstrom is there and just makes one of those little poke checks that only so many defensemen in the league can make. Dupuis gets the puck back and ends up offsides.

1:56: Franzen steals a puck near the Penguins' blue line, dumps it in and skates to his bench.

1:39: Fleury is pulled for an extra attacker.

1:30: Off a cycle, Fedotenko dishes a puck into the crease. Osgood is up against the crease and holds it out. Malkin is there battling for the rebound but Osgood covers it.

1:04: Franzen whips the puck down ice wide of the cage.

0:18: Malkin snaps off a wrister from the right faceoff circle. Osgood hangs on for the save. Talbot jabs him with a stick. Osgood falls over as if he were shot by a sniper. A few Red Wings jump Talbot. Kunitz jumps in. Malkin goes after Zetterberg. Malkin is really frustrated and he just boils over dropping the gloves. Zetterberg is an unwilling participant but he battles with Malkin. Malkin slips and falls, gets up and tries to fight Zetterberg some more. An official stands between them holding them at arms length. While that's going on, there's another fight going on in the crease with Osgood in the middle of it. After everyone is separated, A whole mess of penalties are doled out. Malkin gets a boot. Detroit ends up with a two-man advantage. Malkin got five minutes for fighting, an instigator and a 10-minute misconduct. Talbot got two minutes for slashing. Zetterberg gets a fighting major as well. How crazy was that to see two of the best players in the world fight? It'll be interesting to see if the NHL doles out an supplementary discipline after that. We doubt the league will take action, but an instigator in the final five minutes is a no-no.

0:00: End of game. Red Wings 3, Penguins 1.

POSTGAME

-Amazing how one bouce can impact the outcome of a game. If Sidney Crosby scores that goal that hit off the post and was eventually covered by Zetterberg early in the third, this is a tie game and all bets are off. Instead, Detroit came right back and got a goal by Abdelkader that essentially sealed the win for them.

-Regarding that goal by Adbelkader, we didn't have a great look on it to see if there was a screen, but Marc-Andre Fleury needs to make that save. Chris Osgood is stealing goals at times for his teammates and giving them momentum. Fleury is not.

-We're not saying Fleury played awful by any means, but he's just not playing to the standard Osgood is setting this series. He's made a few saves that were tough, but how many of his saves having you saying, "Wow!" to yourself? Osgood has made saves fitting that description in our book.

-If there's any hope to the Penguins being down 2-0 in this series, it's that they have arrived at this point much differently than they did last year. In the first two games of last year's Cup final, they were completely outplayed. So far in this series, the gap between them and Detroit isn't that wide. They've controlled play at point throughout each game. The Red Wings have just cashed in more of their chances and have been aided by a few lucky bounces. This series is far from over.

-As we've said more than enough, playing from behind on Detroit is a death sentence.

-It might be lip service, but Mike Babcock seems to have a similar opinion:

"I've been impressed with how hard they've played right throughout their lineup. They've put a lot of heat on us at times. Tonight they hit two posts. Crosby hit a post, Guerin hit a post, Crosby hit a post east-west behind the net. That's the way hockey is. You've got to keep working hard."

-Evgeni Malkin will not be suspended for picking up that instigator penalty at the end of play. This is a statement from the NHL regarding the incident:

"DETROIT (May 31, 2009) -- National Hockey League Senior Executive Vice President and Director of Hockey Operations Colin Campbell issued the following statement regarding the instigator penalty assessed to Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin at 19:41 of the third period of tonight’s Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final:

Rule 47.22 states: "A player who is deemed to be the instigator of an altercation in the final five minutes or at any time in overtime shall be suspended for one game, pending a review of the incident. The director of hockey operations will review every such incident and may rescind the suspension based on a number of criteria. The criteria for the review shall include, but not be limited to, the score, previous incidents, etc..."

Following that review, Campbell said: "None of the criteria in this rule applied in this situation. Suspensions are applied under this rule when a team attempts to send a message in the last five minutes by having a player instigate a fight. A suspension could also be applied when a player seeks retribution for a prior incident. Neither was the case here and therefore the one game suspension is rescinded."

NHL Hockey Operations also determined that Malkin should have been assessed a game misconduct for not having his jersey tied down. "

-Technically Malkin had been suspended for roughly an hour after the game until Campbell made his ruling.

-Again, Sidney Crosby needs to produce. He's getting his chances. He getting shots on net. He's creating chances for his teammates. But something offensively is needed out of Crosby. The Penguins got to final this season because he was scoring at a pace that rivaled some of the greats of the game. The Penguins will not win the Cup without Crosby producing offensively.

-That said, just like last year, he's going against one of the best defensive forwards in the league in Henrik Zetterberg and just like last year, Zetterberg is winning the battle early.

-Its just amazing to seed Detroit operate with a two-goal lead. That saying that a two-goal lead is the worst lead in hockey does not apply to this team. It just sets up a wall at the neutral zone, disrupts passing lanes, and makes it nearly impossible for an opposing team to break through. The coaching throughout this organization is amazing.

-The scary part thing about the Red Wings is that they've limited they haven't played with Pavel Datsyuk, an MVP candidate for five games. If you take Malkin or Crosby off the Penguins, they might fall apart.

-Hal Gill with a pretty strong opinion on his team:

"I think we've proven that tonight I think we outplayed them. Last year we got outplayed pretty badly. And we have to go back home thinking of what are we going to do? Right now, I think we know what to do. We've just got to keep sticking to it, and things are going to go our way."

-The Penguins need something from their role players. Detroit's getting goals from Abdelkader. A score from someone like Tyler Kennedy or Craig Adams would be helpful towards the Penguins' cause.

-Is it us, or has Sergei Gonchar been rather quiet for two games?

-Hossa had the steal (and possible slash on Dupuis) that led to the winning goal by Filppula, but he really hasn't been as large of a factor as one would have thought. He's playing good defense, he had two assists, but you would think a player of his caliber would offer a little bit more.

-It didn't cost the Penguins the game, but the officiating has been awful in this series. Both teams have gotten away with quite a bit.

-The Penguins once again led in shots, 32-26.

-Malkin led the game with six.

-Hossa led the Red Wings with five.

-Can't blame the faceoffs for the Penguins tonight. They led, 27-24 (53 percent).

-Talbot was 6-for-8 (75 percent).

-Abdelkader was 4-for-6 (67 percent).

-Stuart led the game with 24:44.

-He's obviously healthy enough to play, but if he were really 100 percent, we have to imagine Nicklas Lidstrom would have much more than 23:20.

-Gonchar led the Penguins with 23:14.

-Rafalski led the game with three blocked shots.

-Gill, Scuderi, Orpik, Gonchar and Lidstrom each had two.

-Today's obligatory mention of the last team to win the Stanley Cup despite being down 2-0 in a series was the 1971 Montreal Canadiens who came back to beat the Chicago Blackhawks.

-Bill Guerin moved past George Ferguson and Sergei Zubov on for 29th place on the franchise's career scoring list. All three have 15 points, but Guerin (seven) has more goals than Ferguson (four) and Zubov (one).

-Game summary.

-Event summary.

-Highlights.

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