Penguins are close enough to touch trophy this time

Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins are headed back to the Stanley Cup finals.

Maxime Talbot had a goal and an assist to help the Penguins beat the Carolina Hurricanes, 4-1, on Tuesday night and finish off a sweep in the Eastern Conference finals. Pittsburgh lost to Detroit last year in a six-game final series.

Ruslan Fedotenko and Bill Guerin also scored, and Craig Adams added an empty-netter. Crosby had two assists to extend his point streak to six games, and Marc-Andre Fleury stopped the final 30 shots he faced in shutting down Carolina during the final 58 minutes.

If the Red Wings beat Chicago in the West finals, it will set up the first title rematch since the Edmonton Oilers and the New York Islanders met in 1983 and 1984.

Last year, the Penguins stuck to superstitious tradition and didn’t touch the Eastern Conference championship trophy. That led to a loss, so this time Crosby picked it up and skated away with it.

“We didn’t touch it last year and things did not go the way we wanted to, so we switched it up,” Crosby said. “We know what we want.”

The Penguins outscored the Hurricanes 20-9 in the series and trailed for a total of 20 minutes 30 seconds in advancing to the Cup finals for the fourth time. Pittsburgh is the first team since the 2000-01 New Jersey Devils to get to the finals in consecutive years.