Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Pens win Game 4, sweep Carolina to head to SCF


(Getty)

Woohoo! The Pens are going back to the Stanley Cup Final again this year after beating the Canes for the fourth time by a score of 4-1. How awesome does this feel? We don't know how we're going to wait until the finals start. If the Wings don't beat the Hawks tonight to take the series, we're looking at waiting until June 5th more than likely. That's way too long.




- Once again the Canes had all the momentum at the beginning of the game and even got a goal from their star player who hadn't scored all series not even two minutes in and they still manage to lose. Obviously we're not complaining but they had to just be out of gas. We fully expected this series to be a lot harder than it was.

- Fleury may have given up that goal early, but he was solid the rest of the game. That stick save in the first period was awesome. People like to complain about Fleury a lot, but he's shown he's clutch. And he wins games. How can you complain about that?

Fleury save about 1:20 in.



- Sidney Crosby and Bill Guerin are looking really good right now. Last night we had a pass from Crosby to Guerin on a 2-on-1 for a nice goal. The game before, basically the same thing but reversed. We have to admit we weren't all that impressed when we heard Guerin was coming here but he sure has been valuable in a lot of ways. Does anyone think he plays like he's 38? We don't. Sidney Crosby can do that to you.

- How can you argue with keeping Boucher in the lineup instead of Dupuis? He's played well and that pass to Feds last night for the Pens' first goal was nice.

- We have to give a lot of credit to Cam Ward. He was by far their best player in the entire series and, a lot of the time, the only one who showed up. He made a lot of great saves and tried to keep his team in games and he was just not backed up. He just couldn't do it all himself and when you're left out to dry like he was over and over, goals are going to get scored. He took a lot of the blame but we don't think he deserves to. Hardly any of the blame should be placed on him.

- Crosby is close to the playoff record for points and he dishes off the empty netter to Craig Adams instead of going for it himself. What a player. Now Adams has three goals in the playoffs, two of them empty netters. Although that empty netter directly off the faceoff was awesome. That's skill.

- Sidney Crosby touched the Prince of Wales trophy?! He's shocking us all this year. First the hat and now this? Is he sick? We definitely think the whole not touching the trophy thing was a little over the top. Besides, Mario Lemieux touched it both times before winning the Stanley Cup. How can you argue with that? The trophy even got a nice ride home.


Picture is from the Penguins Facebook page and thanks to Seth from EN for finding it.


The Prince of Wales trophy presentation:



Max Talbot's phenomenal interview with Dan Potash after the game:



Interviews with Sidney Crosby, Bill Guerin, and Marc-Andre Fleury:






Who's next? Bring it.

Go Pens!


2 comments:

Toad268 said...

Roughly one year ago, we were in the same position. Fresh off of a victory against our rivals the Philadelphia Flyers, we were celebrating the first conference title in 25 years. Now, not so much. Yes, we are celebrating. Yes, we are conference champions. The difference is that this year we are hungry. We want the cup. We want Detroit. This year is different. This year, we win!

for more, go to:
http://www.everythi ngpittsburgh.net/blo gs/EP.php/2009/05/27 /eastern-conference- champions#more123

Unknown said...

I was also "shocked" to see Sid not just touch, but actually grab the trophy. I thought that would never happen for Sid considering how superstitious he is. I am glad he did it and I like his reason for doing it. ;-)