With just seconds to go 'The Piece' stuck out a foot and saved Pittsburgh from overtime in Game 6.
PITTSBURGH -- Marc-Andre Fleury laid down his left pad with 1:41 to play to thwart Dan Cleary on a breakaway and the cell phone of Mario Lemieux's buddy, Pierre Larouche, buzzed. It was a text from Grant Fuhr:
"That could be your Cup."
As it turned out, that save was only a piece of the puzzle. "The Piece" had yet to be counted.
Before the Pittsburgh Penguins could be sure of their 2-1 Game 6 victory in this Stanley Cup final, and a trip to that fabled Game 7 at Joe Louis Arena on Friday night, 'The Piece' - his teammates new nickname for Penguins defenceman Rob Scuderi - had to have his say.
He made two saves with his own left pad with 13.2 seconds left in the game, preserving a fantastic defensive effort for the Penguins and sending this final to a seventh game.
The Piece? Do tell.
"I made a pretty brutal quote a couple of days ago," Scuderi explained. "I was supposed to say, 'a' piece to the puzzle, but instead I said, 'the' piece to the puzzle. So, it's not Sid, it's not Geno. Apparently it's me."
Count on someone in a hockey dressing room to sift through the mountains of newspaper copy generated by this series, to unearth the one quote that most thoroughly embarrasses a teammate. And this teammate - likely the most selfless, take-a-hit-to-make-the-play guy in the dressing room.
"He has been taking it for the way the quote came out," said his coach, Dan Bylsma. "I know he said 'it takes a lot of pieces and I am just a piece.' Not 'the piece.'"
It could be worse. There was once a minor-league player who earned the nickname Two Persons, because no one person could possibly be that stupid.
In Scuderi's case, it's hard to believe one person could be so selfless, though it must be said every good National Hockey League team has a Rob Scuderi. They are guys with names like Ken Daneyko, Dean Kennedy, Jason Smith and Craig Ludwig.
"He's our steady defender," Bylsma said. "He'll dive in front of a puck, he'll pay the price in the corners to get a puck out. He's awesome on the penalty kill, and he's charged without match-ups on a lot of nights. That's something you can't really put a value on if you're not there in the trenches with him."
And at the ultimate moment on Tuesday, with goalie Marc-Andre Fleury out of his net and Franzen whacking away at a puck from the top of the crease with 15 seconds left in a 2-1 game - 'The Piece' played goalie, and played it well.
"I'm more of a stand-up guy than a butterfly guy…" he said.
"We're on the bench, and we see a big [scrum] in front of the net," Pascal Dupuis said. "We see him, with two legs on the side playing butterfly goalie. I guess he plays a lot of knee hockey with his son at home.
"It happens so quick sometimes, that you do something. From instinct."
Instinct. For a Canadian kid - or even a kid from Syosset, New York, like Scuderi - a Game 7 in the Stanley Cup final is as instinctual as it gets.
Pittsburgh threw a perfect game at Detroit for 40 minutes, holding the Red Wings to 12 shots on net. Nobody holds the Detroit Red Wings - who averaged a league-high 12 shots per period this season - to just 12 shots on net through 40 minutes. Or 26 in a game, for that matter.
But that is the game that the Penguins reached back and found, on the night their season hung in the balance. They had lost this very game a year ago to the Red Wings, and watched the Detroit players pass big Stanley around under The Igloo - the ultimate shame in this sport, like watching some guy take the last dance of the night with your girl.
This time however, Phil Pritchard was forced to put the big spittoon back inside its' carrying case for the drive back to Detroit, where one hell of a hockey game awaits on Friday night.
It's only the 15th Game 7 in Stanley Cup final history and the first for young Sidney Crosby, whose team won for the first time - in 29 playoff victories dating back to 2007 - a playoff game in which he and Evgeni Malkin went pointless.
"It's an unbelievable opportunity," Crosby said. "We found a way to survive. Now it's anyone's game."
How many times has he played this Game 7 in his mind?
"Hundreds of times, like every kid growing up," Crosby said. "You play street hockey, you play on the outdoor rinks, you always dream of that opportunity. You watch Game 7s on the TV…. We've got an amazing opportunity."
Fleury was fantastic, salvaging a game Pittsburgh clearly deserved to win when he stoned Cleary with 1:41 left on a clean breakaway. "If anyone doubts his character, well, he showed it tonight," said Dupuis.
"Since I am young, I dream of making a save on a breakaway to win a Cup," Fleury said.
He accomplished the first part of that dream on Tuesday.
Now, it's off to Detroit, a town where it's always a good idea to bring your "Piece."
