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Watch a few minutes of this spring’s NHL postseason, and you’ll come across a poignant commercial highlighting some of hockey’s most iconic players celebrating the final seconds before claiming the Stanley Cup.
Late in the commercial, we see a snippet of a moment forever etched in Pittsburgh Penguins history. An injured Sidney Crosby, glued to the visitor’s bench at Joe Louis Arena, finally jumps for joy when Marc-Andre Fleury makes one of the most famous saves in hockey history, denying Nicklas Lidstrom with one second remaining to conclude one of the greatest series in NHL history.
It all happened 15 years ago, on June 12, 2009, in Detroit. Crosby, so locked into the present, rarely discusses that day but took some time to reminisce with The Athletic this week.
“What an amazing moment,” the Penguins captain of 17 years said.
Entering Game 7 in Detroit, the home team had won each of the previous six games in the series. The Penguins had been outscored 11-2 in the three games in Detroit leading up to Game 7. Including the previous season’s Stanley Cup Final, the Penguins were 1-5 all-time at Joe Louis Arena in Stanley Cup Final action and had been outscored in those games by a whopping 21-6 margin.
They were not the betting favorite that night, and on the surface, didn’t possess much logical reason to feel confident on that warm Friday night in Detroit.
Yet they did, Crosby insists.
“I was confident,” Crosby said. “We were playing well, but you also know that anything can happen in one game.”
That loss the previous spring taught the Penguins many crucial lessons about the stage of the Stanley Cup Final, about the quirks of Joe Louis Arena, and about what it took to conquer the mighty Red Wings.
“We felt like we gained a lot from the year before,” Crosby explained. “We had the confidence we would get it done.”
As fate would have it, the Penguins would get the job done thanks to two Max Talbot goals, a sublime performance from Fleury and an overall team defensive performance that illustrated just how considerably those precocious Penguins had evolved.
For Crosby, though, the evening offered a different perspective. All he could do was sit and watch as the Penguins held on for dear life after taking a 2-0 lead.
Midway through the second period, Crosby’s left knee was crushed into the boards by a Johan Franzen hit. Crosby couldn’t put pressure on his left leg, only took one shift the rest of the evening, and merely sat in discomfort, a helpless captain.
Crosby was so confident in those Penguins that he insists what should have been a maddening moment was not.
“It wasn’t infuriating,” Crosby said. “I don’t even know how to explain it, other than to say that it’s not how you picture it. Especially going into that game, I wasn’t thinking about that kind of a scenario.”
Crosby, 21 at the time, never let his emotions get the best of him and never felt sorry for himself while sitting on the bench, his knee in too much pain to skate.
“It was a situation where I had to process it quickly and make the best of it,” he said.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
The Penguins led 2-0 through two periods in Detroit.
They put only one shot on Red Wings goalie Chris Osgood for the remainder of the game, as they went into a complete shell, attempting to stave off a final, furious Red Wings push.
Crosby tried taking that one shift in the third period, but it was short-lived. He was done for the evening. The greatest player in the game could provide only moral support from the end of the bench.
The final seconds remain fresh in Crosby’s mind. An offside infraction against the Red Wings with under a minute remaining concerned Crosby, as it gave the Red Wings’ top player a few moments to rest and a faceoff just outside the blue line. Then, a puck went out of play, and the Red Wings took a neutral-zone draw and immediately got the puck deep, when the Penguins’ Brooks Orpik fell on the puck, generating a very quick whistle.
“I remember thinking we were in really good shape until that late offside call,” Crosby recollected. “Then, all of a sudden, they ended up getting a quick faceoff, and within seconds now had a faceoff in our end. I knew that could be dangerous. And sure enough, it turned into a scramble.”
Fleury was forced to make a save that is often forgotten immediately off of the faceoff before being forced to deny a wide-open Lidstrom to preserve the victory. The Penguins’ Jordan Staal and Evgeni Malkin had been taking almost every shift with Crosby on the bench. Staal was on the ice during those final moments.
All Crosby could do was sit and watch.
“I was on the edge of my seat,” Crosby said.
So were his teammates and an entire city.
Fleury, of course, made the saves and triggered jubilation from the Penguins. Crosby, barely able to skate or walk, found the adrenaline to jump off the bench and join his teammates.
Looking back at the moment, though, Crosby still clearly remembers his mindset during those final seconds. Ordinarily, a player’s mind is filled with overwhelming bliss and not much else in those moments. But Crosby’s admiration for what his team had done — and for the brilliance Fleury displayed — was in his mind even before it sunk in that they’d won the championship.
“I remember thinking at the time how poised of a save that was for Flower,” Crosby said. “For him to be that calm in that situation. I remember watching as guys were diving everywhere to prevent a goal. Just amazing.”
(Photo: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
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