Penguins defeat Red Wings to even series
The Pittsburgh Penguins had enough of history repeating itself.
Meeting the Detroit Red Wings in the Stanley Cup finals for the second year in a row, the Penguins had lost the first two games on the road before winning Game 3 at Mellon Arena -- just like last year.
Consider history rewritten as instead of falling in Game 4 the way they did a year ago, the Penguins beat the Red Wings, 4-2. on Thursday night to even the best-of-seven series at 2-2. Game 5 will be Saturday night at Joe Louis Arena.
Pittsburgh rode the momentum of a Jordan Staal short-handed goal in the second period to erase a 2-1 deficit and went on to score three unanswered goals in a span of 5 minutes 37 seconds to help goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury (37 saves) record the victory.
Staal, Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby all had a goal and assist while Tyler Kennedy also scored to help lift the Penguins.
After falling behind on goals by Darren Helm and Brad Stuart, the Penguins seized the momentum with Staal’s short-handed score midway through the second period.
With teammate Brooks Orpik in the box for tripping, Staal took a nice feed from Maxime Talbot, raced into the Detroit zone, skated around defenseman Brian Rafalski and beat Red Wings goaltender Chris Osgood with a forehand to the stick side.
“Max made a great play,” said Staal, who’s short-hander was the first allowed by the Red Wings in 41 playoff games.
“I saw [Nicklas] Lidstrom and Rafalski both kind of flat-footed, and I just kind of buried my head, went for it and snuck it in.”
Said Talbot: “That big bronc, Jordan Staal. It’s tough to contain a big guy like that. He was flying. And obviously it’s a momentum-changer. They have a power play, but we score and all of a sudden it’s 2-2 and we got another one a few minutes after.”
Malkin and Crosby hooked up on a two-on-one just under two minutes later with Crosby finishing for a 3-2 Pittsburgh lead. With Detroit’s Jonathan Ericsson sprawled on the ice between them, Malkin hit Crosby with a pass at the left post and the Penguins captain tapped it in.
Pittsburgh made it 4-2 just 3 1/2 minutes later on another pretty passing play. Chris Kunitz found Crosby in the right circle, who then sent a touch-pass to Kennedy at the left post and Kennedy knocked it in to complete the second-period scoring.
--