Hello, hello. I’ll be on KFAN at 3:30, and on Phil Esposito’s show on XM at 4 p.m.

Remember a few weeks ago when I kinda, sorta predicted Brenden Morrow to score the OT winner against San Jose? Did it again. Was chatting with the Miami Herald’s David Neal during overtime last night and I said Petr Sykora would be the man.

I wasn’t as confident when he took that careless hooking penalty, of course. But, Sykora’s one of the most underrated sniper’s in this league, and I still remember that five overtime winner he scored with Anaheim against Dallas from about the same spot a few years ago. Mike Babcock was the Ducks’ coach, in fact, so you know he remembered. Remember also, Sykora’s only Cup win with New Jersey, he was forced to watch the celebration from a Dallas hospital in 2000.

Heck of a game. Marc-Andre Fleury stole Pittsburgh the game. The Red Wings pressured and pressured, but you could just sense the Pens weathered the storm. Plenty of blood and guts last night, too.

How about Ryan Malone taking a puck to the face and barely missing a shift? The Plymouth resident and Mark Parrish neighbor later threw his head into another puck. His free-agent value has skyrocketed. And talk about drama, but Sergei Gonchar only playing a few shifts in the third, zippo in overtime but returning in the third overtime to help set up Sykora’s power-play goal.

Question now: Did the Pens simply delay the inevitable? Only one team in history has rallied from 3-1 down to win the Cup, the ‘42 Leafs.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 10:29 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.