Malkin leads Penguins to Stanley Cup victory

The city of Pittsburgh has another champion.

Just months after the Steelers sent Pittsburghers into the streets in celebration, the South Side reveled in victory once again as the Penguins knocked off the Detroit Red Wings 2-1 in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

The victory is the Penguins’ first championship since 1992, and the first for the team’s dynamic duo of Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby.

Malkin played in the playoffs as a man possessed. The Russian center led all postseason scorers with 36 points — eight of those in the finals — on his way to winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoffs’ most valuable player.

Criticism of Malkin’s lack of postseason passion forever ended with his play this year. He hit, set up his linemates, buried his chances and led the Penguins, even in losses.

And while Malkin was the most valuable Penguin in the playoffs, the hero of Game 7 was linemate Max Talbot. The young forward, who played on the fourth line at times this season, scored both Pittsburgh goals Friday night. The Red Wings shut down Crosby, as he had just three points in the finals, but Talbot stepped up in his place.

Once Talbot gave Pittsburgh the lead, goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury denied Detroit the opportunity to win. Fleury played some of his best hockey of the season in Games 6 and 7, stopping 48 of 50 Red Wing shots. A lasting memory of the championship run will be his game-saving, point-blank stop on Nicklas Lidstrom with time running out for Detroit.

Fleury purged a rocky Game 5 loss from his memory and came back calm and composed for the Penguins’ win-or-go-home games.

Indeed, things appeared dreary for Pittsburgh after Detroit shellacked the Penguins 5-0 to go up in the series 3-2. The Red Wings looked primed to win their second consecutive Cup over Pittsburgh, but a few things went wrong for them.

Overlooked in the first three rounds, The Red Wings’ struggles on the road in the postseason caught up with them. Detroit finished just 4-6 away from home in the playoffs, and that record bit the team in Game 6 when it had the chance to win the Cup in Pittsburgh. The Penguins ended Detroit’s party, winning 2-1, and rode the momentum into Game 7.

Marian Hossa, who potted 40 goals in the regular season, went scoreless against Pittsburgh, his former team. His bad play couldn’t have come at a worse time: Henrik Zetterberg keyed defensively on Crosby, and Pavel Datsyuk missed four games with a foot injury. In addition, the spotlight was already on him because of his decision to leave Pittsburgh for Detroit in the offseason.

Datsyuk’s return from his injury in Game 5 sparked the Red Wings to their dominating win, but the Hart Trophy finalist wasn’t a major factor in the final two games of the series. Were he not in Cup-clinching games, his injury might have kept him from playing.

And Datsyuk wasn’t the only ailing Detroit player. Though no Red Wing used his injury as an excuse, after hearing the laundry list of the injuries, it’s no wonder some players slumped. Lidstrom, arguably the best defenseman of this decade, revealed he missed two games against Chicago because of surgery on his testicle after being speared by Patrick Sharp. Defenseman Brian Rafalski, who tallied 12 points in the playoffs, suffered both a separated shoulder and a ruptured disk in his back.

On Pittsburgh’s team, the undisclosed right knee injury defenseman Sergei Gonchar suffered in a collision with Washington’s Alex Ovechkin turned out to be a partially torn MCL. Gonchar missed two games from the injury, a setback that normally requires nearly two months to heal.

A jammed left knee kept Sidney Crosby on the bench for all but one shift in the third period of Game 7. The knee needs some rest — though it might not immediately get that with all the Stanley Cup revelry — but the injury isn’t serious, certainly not serious enough to affect him next season.

After all, the Penguins’ defense of their Stanley Cup championship begins in training camp in just three months.