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PITTSBURGH — Daniel Cleary gets his second chance to become the first Newfoundlander to ever win a Stanley Cup championship Wednesday night when the Detroit Red Wings meet the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 6 of what has become an ever-more intriguing final.
The Penguins were on the brink of elimination in Monday's fifth game, only to force overtime with 35 seconds left on the clock on a goal by Maxime Talbot and then won the four-and-a-hour marathon in triple overtime.
In doing so, they became the first team in more than 70 years (and only the second team ever) to stave off elimination in the Stanley Cup final by tying the game in the final minute of regulation play. Trivia fans will want to know: The only other team to do so was the 1936 Toronto Maple Leafs. The Red Wings led the best-of-five series 2-0 and the game 3-2 when Toronto's Pep Kelly scored at 19:19 of the third period to tie the score at 3-3. The Maple Leafs went on to win the game in overtime, but lost the next one, and the series, to the Red Wings.
History is on Cleary's mind as well these days. Forty-five years ago, Alex Faulkner became the first player from The Rock to play for the Stanley Cup, on the '63 Red Wings who lost to the Maple Leafs. Faulkner played a lot that year, not so much the next, when the Red Wings again fell to the Leafs.
Musician Kid Rock cheers on the Detroit Red Wings, as Daniel Cleary skates past, while the Red Wings play the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 5. (Shaun Best/Reuters)
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- Detroit Red Wings
- Pittsburgh Penguins
- Daniel Cleary
- Kris Draper
- Chris Osgood
- Brian Rafalski
- Maxime Talbot
- Henrik Zetterberg
Curiously, Cleary and Faulkner have never actually met, although Cleary sent him a signed jersey last summer for a charity auction. But when asked what he knows about his famous forbearer, Cleary rhymed off the stats: "Played for the [Conception Bay] Ceebees, No. 12 for the Detroit Red Wings, played in two Stanley Cup finals, lives in Bishop's Falls, a Newfoundland pioneer.
"He's still alive, in great health. Never met the man or spoke to him, but the ties are getting stronger and stronger as each win goes by. I know he's pulling for me.
"My dad grew up watching him. His whole family is a great family of hockey players. He played for the Ceebees, which is where I grew up. I don't know if it's coincidence or fate, but …
"Imagine playing in the Original Six. Imagine how talented you had to be. For me, it was always, 'Wow,' when I thought about that. He's the greatest player Newfoundland has ever produced."
Officially listed in the NHL record books as from Carbonnear, Cleary actually hails from Harbour Grace. Newfoundland premier Danny Williams attended Monday's game as Cleary's guest; they spoke on Sunday afternoon, Williams personally carried the best wishes of his province to Cleary.
"The whole province has caught on, it's been really wonderful," Cleary said. "It's great for Newfoundland. I feel their support, I really do. I obviously can't get a full sense of how it is, but I speak to family and friends and they're letting me know. They sent a banner with 30,000 signatures on it. I know everybody's tuned in. This is crazy. It's funny. You don't realize how big certain things are, until you look back on it, but this is an experience that I'm really enjoying."
The Red Wings had 48 hours to put the disappointment of Monday's loss behind them; the one quality that sets Detroit apart is they have so many experienced players, that somebody has been in virtually every sort of playoff situation and can draw upon that experience in preparation for this game.
Defenceman Brian Rafalski, for example, played for the 2000 New Jersey Devils, who were in a position to win a Stanley Cup at home, in the fifth game, only to lose, same as Detroit was last Monday. However, Rafalski's Devils then turned around and won the Cup on the road, in Dallas, in the next game.
Reflecting back on the circumstances of that loss, Rafalski acknowledged, "it was obviously difficult - and it was another close game. It just comes down to determination, refocusing and getting ready to play the next game. We still have a great opportunity here; that's how you have to look at it. No one said it's going to be easy."
Rafalski remembered being tired and drained eight years ago and said: "You have to make sure you hydrate and do the things you have to do to get ready. Being your first opportunity [of three to clinch], you're still in a great situation, so you don't want to look past that. It's not that hard to move forward, because you still have an opportunity here. We stayed focused and did what we had to do."
The Red Wings won all three previous series on the road; it took them six games to eliminate Dallas and the Nashville Predators, while they swept the Colorado Avalanche in four. Pittsburgh is 9-1 at home; their only loss came against the Red Wings in Game 4 last Saturday.
"We're a confident team, a confident group," said centre Kris Draper, one of five Red Wings' players with three Stanley Cup rings. "We feel that we can come into another team's building and be successful. Like you said, all three [times] when we closed opponents out, it's been in another team's building. I think that's a great, great characteristic to have."
Cleary took one of the two goaltender interference penalties in overtime that could have cost the Red Wings Monday night's game (Henrik Zetterberg was tagged for the other). Coach Mike Babcock was eventually coaxed into sharing his views on those calls — surprise, He didn't agree with them — by reporters on Tuesday, only after he'd been repeatedly pressed on the matter. Babcock clearly didn't want to get into a war of words with the NHL's hockey operations department.
Red Wings' goalie Chris Osgood, who is known to get upset when opposing players bump him, suggested the call was not "proper" and thought the NHL would ultimately need to further clarify what exactly constitutes goalie interference in the future.
"I think it was more a case of a player driving hard to the net," Osgood said. "When you're taking a shot on the goalie, you're pushed in, you have a lot of speed, it's hard to stop. You can't stop on a dime. And when you're driving the net, you get a shot on the net, and you brush the goalie, I don't think it's a penalty, especially at that particular time of the game. It was a little bit - I don't think it was proper. We get hit all the time when guys drive the net in the regular season. And we don't have a problem with it.
"It seems to me like there's such a gray area for that rule right now that it needs to be addressed."
The 29-year-old Cleary was talking the other day about how he's come to appreciate the value of experience this year more than in any other — and how important it was to the Red Wings earlier in the playoffs after the team lost back-to-back games in both the Nashville and Dallas series.
"This is an opportunity," Cleary said, "and you have to seize the moment because you don't know when you might get back again. So really focus on what you've got to do and if everybody does that, we should be fine."
