The Pittsburgh Penguins finally got on the board Wednesday night, scoring three times to earn a 3-2 win after being shut out in their first two Stanley Cup Final matchups with the Detroit Red Wings.
With the win, the Penguins avoided going down 3-0 in the series, which now stands at 2-1 with Game Four on Saturday night.
Sidney Crosby led the way for Pittsburgh, scoring the game’s first two goals.
With 2:35 left in the first period, the Pittsburgh captain capitalized on a Detroit turnover. Brad Stuart sent a pass into the skates of Henrik Zetterberg in a failed attempt to clear the Detroit zone. Ryan Malone worked the puck back on to Marian Hossa for a shot that deflected off of both of Nicklas Lidstrom’s skates to Crosby, who snapped a shot past Chris Osgood.
Just 2:34 into the second period, Crosby banged in the rebound of a power play shot by Hossa and the Penguins had a two-goal lead.
Johan Franzen scored his first goal of the series to get the Red Wings on the board on a Detroit power play. With 5:12 left in the second, Franzen went outside-inside to get around defenseman Rob Scuderi on the left wing and drive to the net. He lifted a near-side shot from in close over the shoulder of goalie Marc-Andre Fleury and into the net.
On a broken play at 7:18 of the third, Adam Hall put the Penguins back up by a pair, banking a shot from behind the net off the back of a scrambling Osgood.
With 6:23 left in the game, Mikael Samuelsson snapped a shot from the right wing past Fleury to pull the Wings back within a goal but they would be unable to tie things up, with Pittsburgh holding on for the win.
Fleury stopped 32 of 34 shots in earning the win while Osgood made 21 saves on 24 Pittsburgh shots.
