Red Wings Hold Off Pittsburgh Comeback to Claim Cup

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After scoring with just 34 seconds remaining to force overtime on Monday night, the Penguins looked for late goals to pull even again on Wednesday. This time, Detroit’s defense held strong and prevented Pittsburgh from tying things up, giving the Red Wings their fourth Stanley Cup in the past eleven seasons.

Marian Hossa’s power play goal with 1:27 left in the third pulled the Penguins to within a goal but Chris Osgood stopped Hossa as the clock ran out to finish off Detroit’s championship run.

The Red Wings took the lead early with Brian Rafalski scoring at 5:03 of the first period on a power play. Rafalski snapped a shot from the left faceoff circle off the shin pad of Hal Gill and past Marc-Andre Fleury for his fourth goal of the playoffs.

Valtteri Filppula put Detroit up by two at 8:07 of the second, banging the rebound of a Mikael Samuelsson shot between Fleury’s legs.

A power play goal by Evgeni Malkin with 4:34 left in the period put the Penguins on the board, scoring on a blast from the top of the left circle that went between Chris Osgood’s pads.

Henrik Zetterberg, the Conn Smythe Trophy winner as MVP of the playoffs, scored the eventual Cup-winning goal at 7:36 of the third.

He snapped a shot on Fleury from the left wing and the puck trickled through before stopping in the crease. No one but the referee could see where it was and when Fleury fell to try to cover it, he knocked it back into the net.

Pittsburgh went two-for-four on the power play and Detroit went one-for-three.

Fleury finished the night with 27 saves on 20 Detroit shots, finishing the playoffs with a .933 save percentage and a 1.97 GAA. Osgood stopped 20 of 22 attempts to finish the postseason with a .930 save percentage and a GAA of 1.55.

The Red Wings will celebrate their championship with a parade through Detroit on Friday.

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Clark founded the site that would become DetroitHockey.Net in September of 1996 with no idea what it would lead to. He continues to write for the site and executes the site's design and development.

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