PENS THROUGH TO STANLEY CUP FINALS AFTER SWEEPING ‘CANES

The Pittsburgh Penguins are back in the Stanley Cup Finals for the second consecutive season following a sweep of the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference Finals.  Pittsburgh wrapped up their series with a 4-1 victory in Raleigh, NC on Tuesday night.  Carolina got on the board quickly, but the Penguins responded with four unanswered goals to earn the win.  They’ll now await the outcome of the Western Conference Finals where the Detroit Red Wings hold a 3-1 lead over the Chicago Blackhawks.

Sports bettors who backed the Penguins were rewarded for their -135 road favorite investment, while the five combined goals stayed UNDER the posted total of 5’.  It was only the Penguins third win in their last eight games at Carolina and only their 4^th UNDER in their last eleven playoff games.  Carolina, meanwhile, had only gone OVER 4 times in their previous eleven games including their game four loss (5 UNDER, 3 push).

Things looked promising for the home team as Erik Staal scored just over a minute into the game assisted by Erik Cole and Sergei Samsonov.  The Penguins would tie the game less than five minutes later on Ruslan Fedotenko’s 6^th goal of the playoffs assisted by Phillippe Boucher and Maxime Talbot.  Talbot would do the honors at 18:31 of the period, scoring from Miroslav Satan what would prove to be the game winning goal and Pittsburgh took a 2-1 lead into the first period intermission.  Bill Guerin scored at 12:10 of the second period assisted by Sidney Crosby to make it 3-1, and Craig Adams would cap the scoring with his empty net tally at 18:50 of the final period to produce the 4-1 margin of victory.

After the game, Pens captain Sidney Crosby held aloft the Prince of Wales Trophy symbolic of the Eastern Conference Championship—this, despite a hockey superstition that touching the trophy is ‘bad luck’.  Crosby explained:

"We didn't touch the trophy last year, and things didn't go the way we wanted," Crosby said. "I thought we'd change it up this year."

Crosby indicated that he wasn’t concerned with whom they’d eventually face in the Stanley Cup Finals, but that he understood that a rematch with Detroit would be a much bigger deal to the media:

"For you media guys, there's a lot more story lines with a Detroit rematch. To go through last year was tough, but we've got a chance here and we want to make the most of it."

Hurricanes’ goal scorer Eric Staal summed up his team’s emotions:

"It just doesn't feel very nice knowing that tomorrow we're all done.”

‘Canes’ coach Paul Maurice offered little explanation for his team’s ouster:

"We just talked about staying in the game as long as we possibly could. You're down one, you're down two. We didn't want to get it to three."

The Penguins could learn the identity of their finals adversary as soon as Wednesday night, as the Red Wings host the Blackhawks at Joe Louis Arena.  A Detroit victory would send them to the finals, which would then get underway this weekend.