Ed Frankovic’s Blog

Hershey Bears Calder Cup Champions; Penguins win Stanley Cup (Updated)

Posted 9 months, 9 days ago
by Ed Frankovic

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The Hershey Bears are the Calder Cup Champions after knocking off the Manitoba Moose, 4-1, in game six of their series tonight in Winnipeg. Hershey blitzed Moose goalie Cory Schneider for three goals in the first period and never looked back. Rookie goalie Michal Neuvirth, who won the Jack A. Butterfield trophy for AHL playoff MVP, made 24 saves to get the win.  Andrew Gordon, Chris Bourque, Alexandre Giroux and Keith Aucoin scored for Hershey. Congrats to the Bears and the Washington Capitals organization!

Revenge is a dish best served cold if you are a Penguins fan tonight as Pittsburgh held off a furious Red Wings rally to win the Stanley Cup in exciting fashion, 2-1, to avenge last season’s Stanley Cup Finals loss to Detroit. Hockey fans will be watching the incredible Marc-Andre Fleury save on Nicklas Lidstrom with one second left for years to come. Evgeni Malkin was the Conn Smythe Award Winner for Playoff MVP but in my mind, the Pens aren’t anywhere without Sidney Crosby (who was injured in game 7 and barely played after that). Crosby carried this team in the first two rounds, especially against the Caps, and he goes against the opponents best defensive group every game while Malkin gets the second unit.

In Detroit tonight, defenseman Brad Stuart is wearing the goat horns for taking the first penalty (slashing Malkin), then giving the puck away that allowed Maxime Talbot to make it 1-0 Pens, and then pinching at the blue line to set up a two on one for Pittsburgh that they, of course, scored on (Talbot again). I’ve been saying this all playoffs and will say it again - the Penguins are about as good a team as I’ve ever seen at converting two on one breaks.

Btw, please check out my on air discussion with Nestor today in the WNST audio vault (http://wnst.net/wordpress/section/audio/) for my pre game thoughts on the NHL and AHL finals.

For Caps and Baltimore sports fans it was tough seeing Pittsburgh win another trophy but given that the Caps lost two contests in OT to the Pens before bowing out in 7 games should make you and the entire Caps organization realize that they are very close to their first ever Stanley Cup victory. With some salary cap room freeing up from the Viktor Kozlov and Sergei Fedorov departures (and hopefully a Michael Nylander release too), Caps GM George McPhee should finally have some cap space to make the moves he needs to put Washington over the top. There is lots of talent in this organization in the NHL, AHL, and ECHL (the Caps team down there, the South Carolina Stingrays, won the Championship as well).

The NHL Awards show is next week from Las Vegas (Alexander Ovechkin should win the Hart Trophy for MVP and Mike Green is up for the Norris Trophy (best defenseman)), followed by the NHL draft the week after in Montreal (June 26 on Versus), and then free agency begins on July 1 so the NHL off-season will start fast and furious.

Congrats again to Coach Bob Woods and the Hershey Bears on their championship!

Tags:

Aucoin, bourque, Butterfield, Calder, Caps, Crosby, Fedorov, Fleury, Giroux, gordon, green, kozlov, Lidstrom, Malkin, mcphee, neuvirth, nylander, ovechkin, Penguins, Stanley, Stuart, Talbot, woods

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2 Responses to “Hershey Bears Calder Cup Champions; Penguins win Stanley Cup (Updated)”

1. 
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   CapsFan1975 Says:
   June 13th, 2009 at 6:59 am
   

   Only problem. They can’t just buy out Nylander. It would result in a cap hit for a longer period of time than otherwise.

   Lesson learned: no more signing any guy over 32 for a ocntract of more than 2 years. (Of course, it almost seemed like they gave his that good a contract to prove that the Caps were willing to pay good money to get free agents.)

   (Note from Ed: It will be interesting to see what happens with Nylander but he will not be back with the Caps at the NHL level, that is for sure.)

   
2. 
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   Sam Says:
   June 13th, 2009 at 11:28 am
   

   Any chance the caps go after some free agents such as Hossa, Leopold, Bouwmeester, Cole, Antropov, Gaborik, Havlat or one of the Sedin brothers?

   I have always felt the Caps are close, but watching them in the playoffs it is clear they lack a little more veteran presence. Guys like Guerin, Kunitz, Fedotenko helped the Pens and I think the Caps need to go out and get some veteran free agents to help out this team.
   As much as I believe they need some veteran 20-goal scorers to help out Ovechkin and Semin, I really think they could use some veteran defenseman. I think guys like Zubov, Scuderi, Gil, and Mara who are free agents could help us out tremendously.

   (Note from Ed: I don’t think GMGM will do alot, if anything, in free agency as it really hasn’t worked well for him. Look at the last five guys he has signed from another team in the big FA period: Nylander - bust and big cap hit; Kozlov - so-so but a bit overpriced; Pothier - injured alot and overpriced; Poti - best of the bunch but still costs $3.5M a year but not too bad for a top four defenseman; Theodore - good for about 4 months then bombed in the playoffs and now is due $4.5M next season. An NHL scout told me Bouwmeester is going to the highest bidder so it won’t be the Caps.

   However, I wouldn’t put it past George to make a trade or two at the draft. Last year he unloaded Steve Eminger and ended up with the draft pick that brought Washington John Carlson (a very good 19 year old who just helped Hershey win a Calder Cup). For all of the mistakes the Caps made early on in McPhee’s tenure in the draft they have turned that around big time in the last 5 plus years so I think he will continue to focus on relying on his scouting staff at the draft. Now I do see the need for some veteran leadership, a big defenseman, plus a power forward that goes to the net and those could come via a trade at the draft or sometime during the 2009-10 season.)