Pittsburgh won the 2009 Stanley Cup in a dramatic game 7; the only game of the series to have been won by the away team. Maxime Talbot was the unlikely hero of the night, scoring both Pittsburgh goals while Evgeni Malkin was the Conn Smythe recipient.

 The Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup tonight with a dramatic 2-1 Game 7 victory over the defending champion Detroit Red Wings. The championship marks the Penguins’ third Stanley Cup in franchise history (the others being in 1991 and 1992). Both Penguins’ goals in Game 7 were scored by the unheralded forward Max Talbot, who played a very strong two way game and ended up as the Pittsburgh hero. Detroit fought back with a late third period goal, hit a crossbar with approximately two minutes to play, and had two point blank shots on goal with three seconds and then one second left to play in the game, but both were turned away by Pittsburgh goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, leading to the most dramatic Game 7 ending in recent memory and sparking a wild Pittsburgh celebration in front of a stunned Detroit crowd and a crestfallen Red Wings team at the final buzzer.

The Penguins rallied from two games to none down and from three games to two down, winning four of the last five games in the best of seven series to dethrone the Red Wings, whom the Penguins had lost to in last year’s finals in six games. Pittsburgh became just the 15th team in the past 70 years to win the Cup after losing Game 1. Of the five series that have now gone into a game 7 after the previous 6 games have been won by the home team, this was the second where the away team finally broke the stalemate in game 7.

The Penguins were led by their two young offensive superstars, 22 year old assistant captian Evgeni Malkin, and 21 year old captain Sidney Crosby, which for many fans and hockey observers led to comparisons with the Penguins’ 1991 and 1992 championship teams led by the legendary Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr.

Malkin was the NHL’s leading scorer in the playoffs, scoring 36 points on 14 goals and 22 assists, with a +3 plus/minus rating. He won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player in the playoffs, becoming the first Russian player to ever do so, and only the third European to win the prestigious award (behind Red Wings Nicklas Lidstrom and Henrik Zetterberg). He is the first player since former Penguins captain Mario Lemieux (in 1992) to win both the NHL regular season and playoff scoring titles in the same season. Malkin led the NHL in regular season scoring with 35 goals and 78 assists for 113 points in 82 games.

Crosby was second in playoff scoring, with 15 goals, 16 assists, 31 points and a very strong +9 plus/minus rating (after having scored 103 points in the regular season on the strength of 33 goals and 70 assists in 77 games). At 21 years of age, he is the youngest man to ever captain an NHL team to a Stanley Cup championship.

The Penguins received excellent secondary scoring from Bill Guerin, Ruslan Fedotenko, Chris Kunitz, and defensemen Sergei Gonchar and Kris Letang. Defenseman Hal Gill and Rob Scuderi were solid with +8 and +5 ratings. Goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury’s numbers were average, with a 2.61 GAA and a .908 save percentage, but he was spectacular in flashes and made crucial saves when he needed to.

The Red Wings were led by goaltender Chris Osgood, who had a stellar 2.01 GAA and .926 save percentage, with 2 shutouts during the playoff run. Osgood, viewed by many as a potential weakness for the Red Wings, was the exact opposite. Osgood was in fact the best Red Wing in both the overall playoffs and the finals, and he gave them a very real chance to beat the Penguins.

Detroit’s Swedes led the way on offense and defense. Henrik Zetterberg and Johan Franzen led the Wings in playoff scoring and were third and fourth overall in league playoff scoring this year (Zetterbeg had 24 points with an outstanding +13 plus/minus rating, while Franzen had 23 points with a very fine +8 plus/minus rating). Detroit captain Nicklas Lidstrom is still, at 39 years of age, one of the finest all-around defensemen in the game, scoring 16 points during the playoffs and posting a dominant +11 plus/minus rating.

Pittsburgh’s victory prevented Detroit from repeating as champions for the second year in a row and further prevented a fifth Detroit Stanley Cup in the past thirteen years. While the Red Wings remain the NHL benchmark franchise of the past fifteen years, the brash young Penguins are the new Stanley Cup champions, and figure to challenge for many more Stanley Cups over the next several years.

After the game, Malkin said taking a picture with the Cup between himself and Crosby was his dream. That dream has now come true for the fans of the Penguins.

Game scores were as follows:

May 30: Detroit 3 - Pittsburgh 1
May 31: Detroit 3 - Pittsburgh 1
June 2: Pittsburgh 4 - Detroit 2
June 4: Pittsburgh 4 - Detroit 2
June 6: Detroit 5 - Pittsburgh 0
June 9: Pittsburgh 2 - Detroit 1
June 12: Pittsburgh 2 - Detroit 1