The 1st goal sure is important.

The initial 15 minutes of the 3rd Stanley Cup final were owned by the Red Wings. They played a great and effective defense and out-shot Pens 9-1 and they should've gotten the lead both once and twice during that time, but Fleury was hard to beat tonight. So with 5 minutes to play before the first intermission Michel Therrien pulls an ace out of his sleeve. Detroit puts out their 3rd-unit and Therrin quickly throws in Hossa-Crosby and Malkin just to generate some offense, and he gets the effect he's after. During that 45 second shift the Pens super-line has three shots on goal and two excellent scoring-chances. The Momentum has switch. Now it's the Penguins that have the hard checking forwards and the confident defensemen that stand up on the O-blue to keep the pressure going. That's also how the first goal emerge. Hard forechecking forward Sidney Crosby makes D-man Brad Stuart throw away a bad pass right up the middle of Detroit's zone, it gets intercepted buy Hossa who shots and on the rebound Sid the Kid puts it in the net behind netminder Chris Osgood with a little less then three minutes to play of the first period.
Pittsburgh scores 2-0 in a PP just after 2.34 minutes played of the second. Then the pressure is almost non-stop for the tuxedo wearing birds. They continue with their hard forechecking making it very hard for the Red Wings D-men to play that first-handed pass their so good at, best in the.
Most of the offense that Detroit comes up with during the 2nd period is instead thanks to two penalties and some great individual plays by Houdini. During the second penalty Detroit also manage to score, it isn't the typical PP-goal but it sure is pretty. The Mule gets the puck in the neutral zone facing four Penguins, he skates over to the left-side of the Pen's D-zone, makes some quick dazzles and breaks into the net, putting it in top-shelf, scoring the so important 1-2 goal, five minutes before the 2nd intermission.
The third period was probably the best one so far in these Playoffs. Detroit came out and played some beautiful hockey having a bunch of scoring-chances before the Pens 3rd-unit unexpected scored what would become a GW-goal by checkingforward Adam Hall. Once again it was a giveaway, this time it was Andreas Lilja that got tackled down buy 42-years old tough-guy Gary Roberts, twelve seconds later it was 3-1 Pittsburgh. Red Wings' game-winner from match-up 1 Mikael "Sammy" Samuelsson made the game 2-3 with a little less then seven minutes to go. The final seven minutes of the game was a quest for a 3-3 goal by the Red Wings but it wasn't their day, and even if they won the shots in the third period with 16-5 the period ended 1-1 and the game 3-2 Pens. The flightless birds could fly tonight and much of this win should be credited to coach Michel Therrien and the amazing audience in Mellon Arena.

Result: 3-2 (1-0, 1-1, 1-1)

Shots on goal:
Penguins: 24
Red Wings: 34

3 stars of the night:
1. Sidney Crosby, Pit
2. Johan Franzen, Det
3. Marian Hossa, Pit


/Mr X
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