FanHouse MaxTalbot

I don't think there's any question that hockey players are the most approachable, fan-friendly athletes in sports. I still remember being in high school and hanging around Mellon Arena after games and getting a chance to meet (and score autographs!) from guys like Alexei Kovalev, Johan Hedberg and Andrew Ference (hey, these were the lean years), not to mention the one night we had the opportunity to ask Owen Nolan why he backed down from Kryzsztof Oliwa in a fight.

The Penguins are still reveling in their win, while they spent Saturday night on the town with their new friend, Stanley.

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.

It's kind of an unwritten rule in hockey that when your team wins the conference championship, you're not supposed to touch the trophy (in the case of the Eastern Conference, the Prince of Wales Trophy) because, in theory, that's not the piece of hardware you strive for. You're not supposed to show it the same respect you would show the Stanley Cup, so, by tradition, few teams ever actually acknowledge its existence, let alone touch it.

Following Pittsburgh's 4-1 win on Tuesday, which gave the Penguins a clean four-game sweep over Carolina in the Eastern Conference final, captain Sidney Crosby not only touched it, he actually carried it off the ice. His reasoning?

---

---

The NHL's new hard-line stance on message-sending and late-game fisticuffs seems to have lasted, oh, about two weeks. Late in the third period of Pittsburgh's 7-4 win on Thursday, Carolina's Ryan Bayda was involved in a line brawl of sorts that featured Bayda delivering what appeared to be a cross-check to the face of Kris Letang.

In the end, Miroslav Satan fought Patrick Eaves, Tim Gleason fought Letang, and Bayda was issued a match penalty for intent to injure. By rule, Bayda was immediately suspended from further competition pending a league review. That review has taken place, and Bayda walks away with a $2,500 fine and no suspension.

After some late-game fisticuffs on Tuesday, the Detroit Red Wings and Anaheim Ducks are set to take part in a one-and-done Game 7 at Joe Louis Arena, in a contest that has to be more entertaining -- from a competitive standpoint -- than what we saw on Wednesday in Washington. Depending on who you ask, the line brawl in the closing minutes of Game 6 could be a rallying cry for the Red Wings.

---

---

PITTSBURGH -- Thanks to their 5-3 win on Friday night, the Pittsburgh Penguins evened their Eastern Conference semifinal series with Washington at two games apiece, setting the stage for what is, essentially, a brand new, best-of-three series starting Saturday night in Washington.

The Penguins overcame another shaky performance by their power play, as well as the loss of defenseman Sergei Gonchar following a hit from Alex Ovechkin midway through the first period to pick up their second consecutive win in the series.

---

---

As we mentioned on Wednesday night, the Philadelphia Flyers turned the final 19 seconds of their 4-1 loss in Pittsburgh into a parade of penalties. One play that was overlooked by the on-ice officiating crew was Daniel Carcillo giving Penguins forward Max Talbot a little shot to the head with what appeared to be his stick or elbow (there's no video floating around the web as of now).

While the officials during the game may have missed it, the suits in the NHL offices certainly did not. As a result, Carcillo is being summoned to the principal's office at 3 PM ET, Thursday, to discuss the play in question.

---

---

Perhaps the best news coming from the Penguins on Thursday isn't the fact they pulled off a somewhat improbable come-from-behind win on Wednesday night, but the news that Sergei Gonchar may be closer to returning to the lineup than originally believed.

On Monday, Gonchar was cleared to take part in contact drills in practice, and according to Dave Molinari of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, his workout went quite well. So well, in fact, he described his return as being possibly "sooner than we expected."

As if Wednesday's loss to the Capitals wasn't bad enough for the Pittsburgh Penguins, it also came with a heavy price, as they lost Sidney Crosby to an apparent leg injury. Initially, Crosby had been described as day-to-day, and on Friday afternoon, the Penguins captain ruled himself out for their game against Anaheim after taking part in the morning skate. Had Crosby played, it would have been the first time he took the ice against Ducks forward Bobby Ryan, the No. 2 pick in the 2005 draft who was taken one spot later than Crosby.

As a result of Crosby's absence, the Penguins' already thin group of forwards becomes even more depleted, as the team is already skating without Ruslan Fedotenko, Pascal Dupuis and Max Talbot. The injuries led to a bit of humor -- because if you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at? -- from the team's official website.

For two periods Wednesday night's Penguins-Capitals tilt lived up to the hype -- and we certainly hyped it. Following some spirited trash talk between Alex Ovechkin and the Penguins bench prior to the start of the third period, Ovechkin transformed himself into a one-man wrecking crew, as he helped take over the game and lead the Capitals to a 6-3 win.

The Capitals scored four goals in the third period -- including two from Ovechkin -- as they snapped a three-game losing skid. Meanwhile, for the Penguins, the inconsistencies continued, as they failed to win back-to-back games yet again. In case you haven't been paying attention, the Penguins have not won consecutive games since the middle of November.