Penguins use their youth, energy to beat Red Wings

FROM DETROIT — The guy whose teammates joked about his bad hands scored twice, the goalie who was yanked in his previous game at Joe Louis Arena saved his team's season and the Pittsburgh Penguins dethroned the Detroit Red Wings as Stanley Cup champions in a Game 7 performance that will go down as one for the ages, if not the aged.

The young Penguins held the Red Wings to two goals in the last two games, winning by identical 2-1 scores and becoming only the third road team, after the 1945 Toronto Maple Leafs and 1971 Montreal Canadiens, to win a Game 7 in 15 occasions.

Despite losing Sidney Crosby to an injured left knee five minutes into the second period -- he took one tentative shift in the third but feared he'd hurt the team if he couldn't play all out -- the Penguins made Maxime Talbot's two goals stand up against a late Detroit push.

"I thought we looked out of gas pretty much all series," Detroit Coach Mike Babcock said. "I thought we competed and I thought we tried, but I never thought we got to the level we'd have liked to."

And how would you like to be Marian Hossa, who left the Penguins as a free agent last summer to sign with the Red Wings because he thought they had a better chance to win the Cup this season?

Hossa, downcast but classy, congratulated Penguins winger Miroslav Satan, his Slovakian compatriot. He said he wasn't sure if he will stay in Detroit but the present weighed too heavily on him to ponder the future.

"I'm sad to lose," he said. "I worked hard, but you need to be lucky."

The Red Wings were unlucky Friday -- Niklas Kronwall hit the crossbar with just under three minutes left -- but they weren't energetic enough to win. Their offense vanished and their defense, shaky much of the season but improved by playoff time, fell apart. Mistakes by Brad Stuart set up the goals by Talbot, a grinder who had eight playoff goals after scoring 12 during the season.

"Hey, I still have bad hands," Talbot said, laughing. "These two goals don't improve my stickhandling skills."

But they helped make him a Stanley Cup champion, as did the diving save by goalie Marc-Andre Fleury on a shot from the left side by Nicklas Lidstrom with a few ticks left on the clock.

"They played desperate. They were coming at us," Talbot said. "They're a great team and we were able to stay with it and win the game."