It’s very rare that you will see me write about hockey on this site or even talk much about it in general. There aren’t many fans around but last nights triple overtime game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals had to be the best game I’ve ever seen. I’ll be honest, I didn’t start watching until midway through the third period when the Detroit Red Wings were winning 3-2 over the Pittsburgh Penguins. Thats when it got good.
With under a minute to go in the third period or the last period of regulation, Pittsburgh pulled their goalie to gain a man advantage and they ended up scoring with 34 seconds to go after a huge goal by Maxime Talbot. Pittsburgh scored and literally stole the cup from under the nose of Detroit, at least for the time being.
In overtime, Detroit came out like a house on fire. Firing shot after shot at the Pittsburgh goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury and he kept responding with awesome save after awesome save. This literally continued for the first two overtimes. Seemingly all the scoring opportunities were on Detroits end and Fleury kept responding as a potential Con Smythe winner should.
Finally, in the third overtime after stating that he would score, Petr Sykora ended the game midway through the third overtime during a five minute major power play. The series would move back to Pittsburgh and the cup would stay under wraps for at least a few more days. After a lackluster NHL playoffs thusfar, the finals feature two of the best young stars in the NHL in Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin along with the flagship US franchise in the Detroit Red WIngs. I hope that people will take notice of how great last nights game was and that people will pay attention for game 6 on Wednesday.
Wings will still win, much more experience than the Pens