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The Pittsburgh Penguins ended a 17-year Stanley Cup drought on Friday night with a 2-1 win over the Detroit Red Wings, giving the franchise its third championship. While current general manager Ray Shero will get his name on the cup for overseeing the hockey operations the past three seasons, former general manager Craig Patrick also had a hand in putting this team together.

After the jump, a player-by-player look at how the 2008-09 Penguins were built over the years.

The Pittsburgh Penguins will likely wait until the last possible second to announce whether or not defenseman Sergei Gonchar will play in game 7, but that won't stop us from speculating. According to Shelly Anderson and Dave Molinari of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Gonchar took part in Wednesday's morning skate, practicing for the second day in a row. This, of course, leaves open the possibility of him being active for Wednesday's win-or-go home throw down at the Verizon Center. If he plays, it's entirely possible that the Penguins could use him simply as a power play specialist. Alex Goligoski and Philippe Boucher played the past two games in his absence. [Pittsburgh Post Gazette]

After being knocked out of Friday's game on a controversial hit by Alex Ovechkin, it was pretty much assumed that Sergei Gonchar's season was over. As it turns out, that might have been a premature thought.

According to Dave Molinari of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Gonchar, perhaps channeling his inner Willis Reed, took part in an optional practice with the Penguins on Tuesday, which would seem to leave open the possibility of him being available for Game 7 Wednesday night in Washington.

It was reported earlier this week that Toronto Maple Leafs defensemen Tomas Kaberle and Pavel Kubina were going to give management a list of teams they would be willing to accept a trade to. Trouble is, one of those guys may not even be on the market if we're to believe general manager Brian Burke.

Burke was quoted in Tuesday's Toronto Star as saying, "I like this guy, bet on him staying," in regards to Kaberle.

Thanks to the shootout wins by the Buffalo Sabres and Florida Panthers on Friday night, the Pittsburgh Penguins enter their game in Toronto on Saturday five points out of the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. It's pretty much a must-win game for the Penguins, and thankfully, they'll be getting some fresh bodies in Sergei Gonchar and Ruslan Fedotenko.

Gonchar has missed the entire season to this point thanks to a shoulder injury suffered in the preseason. He's been the light at the end of the tunnel for Penguins fans, hoping he can return to the lineup and instantly boost a dormant power play unit. Probably not that simple, but, hey, let's hear it for hope!

Entering this season, expectations around the Pittsburgh Penguins were at an all-time high, or, if nothing else, as high as they've been since Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr were suiting up for the team. Here we are in the middle of January, and the Penguins are closer to getting John Tavares or Victor Hedman in this summer's draft than they are to getting the top spot in the Eastern Conference. That's a problem.

To say the team is falling shot of expectations would be a disservice to understatements everywhere. Simply put, this team stinks right now.

Naturally, when a team struggles, everyone looks to make any and all changes to right the ship, and it usually begins an ends with the man behind the bench, in this case, head coach Michel Therrien.

I don't know what the Thrashers give-a-crap level was at, but the Penguins certainly kicked their give-a-crap level up a few notches as they snapped a five-game losing streak with a 3-1 win over Atlanta. Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 28-of-29 shots, while Petr Sykora scored a pair of goals in the win.

Not only did Pittsburgh ends its losing streak, it also ended an 0-for-32 power play drought by going 2-for-6 with the man advantage.

It was a costly win of sorts for the Penguins, as Ruslan Fedotenko and Pascal Dupuis left the game with injuries and did not return. Both players had been playing, perhaps, their best hockey of the season in recent weeks.

Fedotenko appeared to suffer a hand injury when he punched out Colby Armstrong in the first period. It was perhaps the shortest fight of the season, as it consisted of one Fedotenko punch to the jaw, and Armstrong attempting to throw one when both players were on the ice. Fedotenko could be seen shaking his hand as he went to the penalty box, and then headed directly to the locker room and did not return.

Alex Goligoski was again a healthy scratch, as head coach Michel Therrien used the same lineup he used in New York the night before, with much better results. Evgeni Malkin recorded three assists, while Sidney Crosby scored his 16th goal of the season.

Ilya Kovalchuk scored the lone goal for Atlanta late in the third period, ending Fleury's shutout bid.

The New York Rangers spent one day in second place of the Atlantic Division, as their 4-0 win over Pittsburgh vaulted them back over Philadelphia, reclaiming the top spot in the division. New York's special teams chipped in three goals (two power play, one shorthanded) while Henrik Lundqvist was a wall in net, stopping all 27 shots he faced to pick up his first shutout of the season.

After Pittsburgh's Max Talbot was sent off for a boarding penalty just 31 seconds into the first period, Nigel Dawes scored his seventh goal of the season, giving the Rangers a 1-0 lead just a minute into the game. Paul Mara added another power play goal late in the second period, one-timing a clean faceoff win by Scott Gomez behind Pittsburgh goalie Marc-Andre Fleury. Chris Drury would add his 11th goal of the season midway through the third period, while Gomez finished off the scoring with an empty net goal.

The Rangers entered the game in a minor slump, winning only once in their previous five games.

Speaking of slumps, the loss for Pittsburgh is its fifth in a row, and 11th in its past 15. Nothing is going right for the Penguins, including the power play unit which is clicking with all the power of a moped. Head coach Michel Therrien tried to change up the lines for the game, and received the same results.

Miroslav Satan was relegated to fourth-line duty and played a whopping nine-minutes (and only four-minutes through two periods) and finished as a -1 with a penalty. Alex Goligoski, the team's leading scorer among defensemen, was a healthy scratch.

The Pittsburgh Penguins defense has been crushed by injuries through the first three months of the season, as they've been without their top two defenders -- and power play quarterbacks -- in Sergei Gonchar and Ryan Whitney. A couple of weeks ago, they also lost Hal Gill to a shoulder injury, meaning the Penguins have been skating the past three weeks without their top three defenders from last season's playoff run.

Factor in the month that No. 1 goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury missed with a groin injury, and the various other injuries suffered by Tyler Kennedy, Mike Zigomanis and Max Talbot throughout season, and, well, it's been crazy. Actually, it's not that different from a year ago.

Good news, however, as Whitney will be making his return to the lineup tonight when the Penguins take on Tampa Bay at Mellon Arena. Whitney's been out all season after undergoing foot surgery over the summer.

Whitney certainly has his critics among Penguins fans -- myself included, sometimes -- he's still going to be a welcome addition to the lineup with his puck-moving skills, which will hopefully help what has been a mind-numbingly inconsistent power play unit.

Oh my, they're not going to like this in Buffalo. After the Penguins and Sabres skated to a 3-3 tie in regulation, Sidney Crosby deflected an Evgeni Malkin slap shot behind Buffalo goalie Ryan Miller in overtime, giving the Penguins a 4-3 win. As you can see from the above video, it was oh-so-close to being a high-stick.

They key, however, is that the call on the ice was that it was indeed a goal, meaning they would need conclusive evidence to overturn it. Is that conclusive? It's pretty darn close. The fact it's Crosby on the positive end of the call isn't going to sit well with anyone outside of Pittsburgh, I'm guessing, especially after he got away with punching some guy in the goods a week ago. So, cue the conspiracy theories! Anyway, what's done is done, Penguins win, and the Sabres blew three different leads on the night, including a 2-0 advantage in the second period, while going 1-for-6 on the power play.

Pittsburgh's Alex Goligoski picked up three points (two goals, assist) in the win, while Malkin added three helpers in his quest for 100. Malkin, by the way, now has 43 assists on the season -- an amazing number when you consider there were only three players in the NHL entering play on Monday with 43 points (Malkin, Crosby and Alex Ovechkin).