The Pittsburgh Penguins are the 2009 Stanley Cup Champions! I honestly did not believe the Penguins had it in them to defeat the mighty Red Wings in Detroit.
I am glad the Penguins won though. This is very good for the game of hockey. Young guys like Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jordan Staal, and Marc-Andre Fleury winning the Stanley Cup is amazing for hockey. This is only going to bring more and more bandwagon fans over not only to the Penguins, but to the sport of hockey, which is good for everyone.
Sidney Crosby – This will shut up a decent amount of the “Crosby sucks” people. What are they going to say? “Crosby and his Stanley Cup ring suck!” Crosby played absolutely amazing during these playoffs. If it wasn’t for Henrik Zetterberg shadowing him for the entire Finals series, he would have most likely tied and or broken the Playoffs goal scoring record of 19 and made a dent into the top 5 Playoffs scoring with at least 38 points.
Evgeni Malkin – Deserved the Conn Smythe whether the Pens won or lost this game. Malkin finished with 36 points which is only 2 shy of Wayne Gretzky for 5th best all time in one Playoffs. That is pretty amazing and if that doesn’t get you a Conn Smythe, I don’t know what does.
Henrik Zetterberg – Played amazing like usual, but I think the whole “shadowing” of Crosby was a double-edged sword. Because Zetterberg was out worrying about and eliminating Crosby the whole series, he basically destroyed his own offensive presence as well, which may have turned the series to a different outcome for the Wings.
Chris Osgood – All I heard all playoffs long was how “amazing” Osgood was playing and how he deserved the Conn Smythe. I laughed at everyone that told me that. We all expected Osgood to be the Achilles Heel for the Red Wings and since he didn’t totally screw up, we assume he is playing “amazing?” Not here at NHL Snipers we don’t. Osgood still played average at best and as we all saw in the only game that really mattered (Game 7) he let in two goals that were easily savable. Osgood looked very average and if the Red Wings had a guy like Luongo, Lundqvist, Backstrom, etc… they would most likely have been skating around the cup a week ago.
Marian Hossa – Does this guy get the loser award of the year or what? You can’t help but rip a guy apart for losing in the finals to the Wings in 2008 to switching teams only to lose again to the Penguins in 2009. Sucks for him. Anyways Datsyuk and Hossa just didn’t show up for the Wings in the playoffs. Imagine if they played up to par and each had about 20-30 points in the playoffs? Again, Wings probably would have won the Cup a week ago easily.
Pavel Datsyuk – Played great defensively all playoffs, but was a null factor when it came to the scoreboard. Yes, he was injured for 7 games, which was a huge loss for the Wings. I also didn’t even see Datsyuk in Game 7. The only time I saw him out there was late in the game when he got washed along the boards trying to make a dumb behind the back pass. He was just not himself in these playoffs and his foot was obviously a huge issue.
Marc-Andre Fleury - He did not play amazing ever or really stole many games for the penguins, but he played well enough to give his team a chance to win…which they did. Also, he needs to fix that stupid goutee/stash combination that he calls a “playoff beard.” I would’ve blamed the loss of the Finals on that horrible looking thing. At least Crosby tries to grow one; he doesn’t shave it awkwardly like Fleury does.
