Mr. Hockey's Lasting Legacy

There are so few people in the world of sports who can transcend their field of play. Gordie Howe was one of those people. He was the king of kings in the game of ice for a long time. Twenty Five years in a sport, a playing career that spanned from his first year in 1946 till his final season of pro hockey in 1980. Nobody played harder or with a more consistent scoring touch than Gordie. You know you've made a name for yourself in the sport if you have a hat trick named after you. The Gordie Howe hat trick is a goal an assist and a fight in the same game. One of hockey's all time greatest players has passed away at the age of 88 on Friday.

There are so many things that Mr Hockey did and did well, that made him such a legend in the game. His most productive seasons came during an era when scoring was difficult and checking was tight. A big surprise here is that Howe never scored 50 goals in a single season, as his single season high was 49, which he scored in 1953. Despite that fact, Howe ranks fourth in NHL history with 1,850 total points (Only Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier and Jaromir Jagr have more), including 801 goals (only Gretzky has more with 894) and 1,049 assists (now sits 9th in league history in this department). When career regular season goals from both the NHL and the WHA are combined, he ranks first in goals with 975. To make those numbers more astounding, consider this. At the time of his retirement, Howe's professional totals, including playoffs, for the NHL and WHA combined, were shocking. He finished with 2,421 games played, 1,071 goals, 1,518 assists, and 2,589 points. Later on, however, Wayne Gretzky would pass him in goals (1,072), assists (2,297), and points (3,369), but not in games played or games played with one team. Gordie also goes into the record books as the oldest player to ever play in a game, at 52 years, 11 days (no other player has played past the age of 48).

His list of awards and accomplishments, aside from what we've listed above, are outstanding. There's the Hockey Hall of Fame induction in 1972. There's the point totals listed above. Howe was a 23-time NHL All-Star(12-time NHL First All-Star Team and 9-time NHL Second All-Star Team), he's a 4-time Stanley Cup champion (1950, 1952, 1954, 1955),a 6-time Art Ross Trophy winner (1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1957, 1963), a 6-time Hart Memorial Trophy (1952, 1953, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1963), a Lester B. Patrick Award winner (1967). He finished in the top 5 in NHL scoring for 20 consecutive seasons. He has the most games played for a single franchise (1,967, Detroit Red Wings), the most goals and points with a single franchise (786 and 1,809, respectively, Detroit), the ,ost NHL games played (1767). The biggest surprise stat of all is that he is the only player to play in the NHL in five different decades (1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s). Nobody is going to even come close to matching that level again in not only hockey but in all of sports. To be that good for that long at what you do is simply amazing.

Then there's what he did for the sport away from the rink. In retirement, he became one of the sport's most-loved ambassadors, although his public appearances were few in recent years as he dealt with cognitive impairment, a form of dementia. Still nobody showed as much passion for the game, both on and off the rink, than Howe did. He was a little understudied as to the business side of things, as it was later revealed that he had been vastly underpaid during the bulk of his playing days in Detroit. In addition to his on-ice accomplishments, Howe will be widely remembered for his active participation in numerous charities. The most notable is the Howe Foundation, which Colleen founded in 1993 with the aim of improving the lives of children and helping underprivileged youth learn about and play hockey. They were active in building rinks in Michigan and raising money and awareness for more than 150 nonprofit and charitable organizations in North America, according to the couple's website, mrandmrshockey.com. Their efforts included a 65-city tour in honor of Gordie's 65th birthday in 1993, during which the Howes thanked fans for their support and raised money for charity, ultimately pulling in nearly $1 million for various causes. Such tireless work has ensured that Howe will be remembered as much for his off-ice efforts as for what he did in his playing days.

Gordie Howe will forever be known as Mr. Hockey and for good reason. He will be dearly missed.

Sharks Survive To Extend Series

Pittsburgh was trying to do something they have never done before, win the Stanley Cup on home ice. They've won three Cups in the history of the franchise. They on in Minnesota in 1991, won in Chicago in 1992 and in Detroit in 2009. All three previous Cups were won on the road. This was their chance to win the cup at home for the first time ever. They had San Jose on the ropes and had a chance to finish the Sharks off. But somebody forgot to tell that to the Sharks. San Jose came out like a house of fire, then let Martin Jones stand on his head to help keep them in this series. San Jose staved off elimination, coming up with a huge 4-2 win in game five, forcing the series back to San Jose for a game six.

One of the biggest knocks on the Sharks the entire series. at least to this point, was the fact that they haven't been able to play with a lead at all. It took 1:04 into the hockey game to dispel that thought. Brent Burns scored his 7th of the playoffs, set up by Melker Karlsson and Logan Couture, on a wraparound play that beat Murray short side. To put this goal into perspective, it looks a lot like the overtime winner that Joonas Donskoi scored in game three. Both guys scored on a wraparound, with both shots coming short side with Matt Murray dropping down too early to take away the low part of the net. San Jose kept the pressure up, and at the 1:49 mark, Logan Couture scored his 9th of the playoffs, deflecting a Justin Braun shot to give the Sharks something they haven't really experienced in this series: a lead. This marks the first time that Pittsburgh has trailed during a game since Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Final against the Tampa Bay Lightning on May 20 (NHL). One thing you need to know about the Penguins, if you didn't know it already, is never count them out.

Pittsburgh came to life when they got a powerplay about five minutes into the hockey game. Danius Zubrus got called for shooting a puck over the glass. Then twenty three seconds later, at the 4:44 mark, the Pens got back into the game when Evgeni Malkin scored his 6th of the playoffs. Malkin took a pass from Phil Kessel and tried to go back to Crosby at the far post but it hit off a Shark defender and went into the net. But wait, the Penguins weren't done yet. twenty Two seconds after Malkin got the Penguins on the board, this happened:


It was the 6th goal of the playoffs for Carl Hagelin, who has had an impact all playoffs long with Bonino and Kessel as the HBK Line. This game remained deadlocked at two, until the 14:47 mark of the opening period. San Jose got a rush up the ice, Brenden Dillon fed Logan Couture , who then sent a pretty pass to Melker Karlsson who fired home his 5th of the playoffs to finish off a pretty passing play and give the Sharks a lead they would not relinquish.

Once the 2nd period got rolling, so to did the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Pens outshot the Sharks 31-15 over the final two periods of play. That's been one of the major themes of this finals series is that the Penguins have been controlling the game and the pace of play with their pure speed. Martin Jones, once again, had to stand on his freaking head to keep the lead in tact for the Sharks. Don't believe me, fine look at what happened in the 2nd period. One of the best chances for the Pens came with 4:52 left in the middle frame. The HBK line was buzzing again for the Pens. Hagelin took a shot, Jones made a save, but left a big rebound. Nick Bonino jumped all over it but Jones somehow made a HUGE kick save and covered the puck, leaving Bonino wondering what the hell just happened.

As much as the Pens kept pressing, San Jose held the fort down. Joe Pavelski finally put the game away at the 18:40 mark of the 3rd period when he scored an empty netter, his 14th of the playoffs and first of this series. Maybe that will help get a guy like him going. Still the Sharks kept the Penguins quite the rest of the night, forcing the series back to San Jose for a sixth game.

For the first couple minutes of the hockey game, San Jose had a game plan and it worked to perfection. They found a way to cancel out the speed of the Penguins. San Jose played a very sound, technical dump and chase game, sending the puck in deep, beating the Penguins up physically, getting the puck and putting it on goal. That's what lead to the three Sharks goals they scored on Matt Murray. That's what worked for them in the Western Conference Finals against the Blues. San Jose got away from that, thus leading to Martin Jones standing on his head the rest of the hockey game. If they want to have a chance to win the Cup, San Jose needs to keep doing that for a full sixty minutes.

The Sharks became the 15th team, out of 32, to force Game 6 when trailing a Stanley Cup Final 3-1 (since the best-of-7 format started in 1939). Six of those teams forced Game 7, with one winning the championship (the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs against the Detroit Red Wings), according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Game Six is back at the SAP Center in San Jose Sunday night at 8PM!

Remembering The Greatest

There are so few athletes that can transcend their sports the way that he did. Nobody brought you out of your seats more than Muhammad Ali. He could talk the talk and then walk the walk. Whatever he said, he went out into the ring and backed it up. Nobody had hands that were any faster than Ali. He will go down in the books as not only one of the greatest fighters ever, he will go down as one of the greatest people ever. Ali passed away over the weekend at the age of 74.

There were so many things that Ali did, both in and out of the ring, that made him a very popular and polarizing figure. Born Cassius Marcellus Clay on Jan. 17, 1942 in Louisville, Kentucky, to middle-class parents, Ali started boxing when he was 12, winning Golden Gloves titles before heading to the 1960 Olympics in Rome, where he won a gold medal as a light heavyweight. He turned professional shortly afterward, supported at first by Louisville business owners who guaranteed him an unprecedented 50-50 split in earnings. His knack for talking up his own talents — often in verse — earned him the dismissive nickname "the Louisville Lip," but he backed up his talk with action, relocating to Miami to work with top trainer Angelo Dundee and build a case for getting a shot at the heavyweight title. After changing his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali, his career really took off. He had some of the greatest fights in the ring on record. He's bouts with Sonny Liston (who he beat for the title in 1964 in one of the greatest fights of all time), Joe Fraser (was 2-1 against lifetime) Ken Norton (1-1 lifetime) and George Foreman were legendary. Same thing too for the fights with Leon Spinks at the end of his career. Ali and Joe Louis are generally regarded as the two greatest fighters to ever step foot in the ring. Muhammad Ali defeated every top heavyweight in his era, which has been called the golden age of heavyweight boxing.

Ali had a highly unorthodox boxing style for a heavyweight, epitomized by his catchphrase "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee". Never an overpowering puncher, Ali relied early in his career on his superior hand speed, superb reflexes and constant movement, dancing and circling opponents for most of the fight, holding his hands low and lashing out with a quick, cutting left jab that he threw from unpredictable angles. His footwork was so strong that it was extremely difficult for opponents to cut down the ring and corner Ali against the ropes. One of Ali's greatest tricks was to make opponents overcommit by pulling straight backward from punches. That's what made him so great in the ring. He may not have been the hardest hitter in the history of the ring, but he may have been one of the smartest fighters to ever step foot inside a boxing ring. He made people look silly, which is a real talent that so few people in the world of sports had.

As good as Ali was at running his mouth in the ring, he was just as talented at backing it up. Same argument could be made of him outside of the ring as well. One of the biggest things that he will forever be rememberd for was holding out of Military service. At the height of the Vietnam War, Ali was drafted to serve in the U.S. Army. He'd said previously that the war did not comport with his faith, and that he had "no quarrel" with America's enemy, the Vietcong. He refused to serve. "My conscience won't let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, some poor, hungry people in the mud, for big powerful America, and shoot them for what?" Ali said in an interview. "They never called me nigger. They never lynched me. They didn't put no dogs on me." Released on appeal but unable to fight or leave the country, Ali turned to the lecture circuit, speaking on college campuses, where he engaged in heated debates, pointing out the hypocrisy of denying rights to blacks even as they were ordered to fight the country's battles abroad.

That was what made Ali so powerful outside of the ring, when he saw something that wasn't right, he went out and fought against it. He could do a little bit of everything in and out of the ring. he could talk the talk and walk the walk Ali was just that good. He wil;l be forever missed

Penguins One Win Away From Championship

After Joonas Donskoi's heroics in game three, it gave the San Jose Sharks hope. It game them signs of life, making it look like they might come back in the series and that they can protect home ice. They hadn't really shown much consistent life all series but they got the job done to make it a competitive series. Well any chance of that was snuffed out in game four. Thanks to the performance of Matt Murray and Evgeni Malkin, the Penguins came away with a 3-1 win and set themselves up to clinch the Cup at home ice on Thursday night.

Evgeni Malkin isn't the only Penguins forward who was a force in this hockey game, Phil Kessel deserves a lot of credit and consideration for being playoff MVP with the way he's played so far in the playoffs. He and Malkin helped get the scoring started in the first. With seven minutes passed in the opening period, Malkin hit the center red line and found Phil Kessel, who used his speed to bust into the San Jose end. Kessel wired a shot that Martin Jones made the save on, but Jones left a gigantically juicy rebound that found its way to a streaking Ian Cole. Cole wasted no time and buried the puck into the back of the net at the 7:26 mark for his first of the playoffs. It was Cole's first goal in 105 games, regular season and playoffs, dating to March 26, 2015 (against the Hurricanes) (NHL). For Malkin, the assist was his first point in the playoffs. For Kessel, it was his 10th assist and 20th point in the playoffs.That number not only leads all Penguins scorers, it makes him only the 11th player in Penguins history to record at least 20 points in a single postseason, and the first since Malkin and Sidney Crosby did it during the 2009 run to the Stanley Cup. San Jose's crowd had been loud, as they had been all playoffs long, but that goal took them right out of it. As a mater of fact, Pittsburgh has not trailed in 435:46 of playing time, dating to Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Final (NHL).

Things got better for Malkin and company in the 2nd period. About halfway through the period, the Penguins got a poerplay. Up until that point, the Penguins had been 0 for 7 in the series against San Jose on the Man advantage. Pittsburgh did a great job of moving the puck around the rink, with Kessel getting a great look. He walked off the wall, threw it towards the net with a great pass, it found Malkin, hit off his stick and went into the back of the net to give the Penguins a 2-0 lead. For Malkin, that goal must have been a huge weight lifted off his shoulders and helped pad the Penguins lead (which would eventually turn out to be the game winner). San Jose again got limited shots off in the 2nd period, finishing with only four shots in that middle frame. The fact that Tomas Hertl has missed the last two games with an undisclosed injury has started to show its hurting San Jose a little, because they have to try and fill a major hole on the top line with Joe Thornton and Joe Pavelski. That's been hurting San Jose all series, the fact that their top line simply hasn't been producing. Sure Thornton has had one point in the entire series, but after putting up prolific numbers in the West finals against the Blues, he has been held really quite in the Finals, which is something that can't happen come this time of year.

So now Pittsburgh carries a 2-0 lead going into the final period. San Jose finally flipped the switch and showed up in the 3rd period, firing 12 shots on Matt Murray, who had to be really sharp. San Jose finally got on the board at the 8:07 mark when Melker Karlsson scored his 4th of the playoffs, and first of the finals, to get the Sharks back in the game. It was off a wild scramble in front and the puck bounced to Karlson in the slot who got the shot away as he was getting knocked down. San Jose kept the pressure up, including a fantastic chance for Joe Pavelski. The leading goal scorer was left alone in the right circle and ripped one on net, but Matt Murray was able to get a pad on it and turn the shot away. despite all the pressure that San Jose was getting, Eric Fehr put the game away:


That one broke the back of the Sharks in game four and sealed the win for Pittsburgh. Could not have been any sweeter a goal for Eric Fehr.

Lets give a little bit of credit where its due here, San Jose has found their legs in this game. They finally outshot the Penguins over the course of the game, finishing with a 24-20 advantage in shots including a 12-7 edge in the 3rd period. That is all well and good but if they can't finish those great scoring chances, then what good will it be doing them in the rest of the series. San Jose showed a little more life, but as mentioned earlier, they've had to play catch up in the entire series. The Sharks have never really been able to get any kind of consistent pressure on Matt Murray. Sure they've managed to be able to find the back of the net, but they have been badly outplayed in the entire series. For San Jose, they really need to get this thing figured out, otherwise they will have to stand there and watch the Penguins skate around with the Cup Thursday night.

Game five will take place at Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, this Thursday night at 8PM!

Draymond Green Huge In Game Two

Game one, the story was how well the bench played for Golden State. Shaun Livingston had twenty points and the bench for the Warriors combined for a total of 45 points in the 104-89 win in the opener. Some lead to wonder if the Splash Brothers were going to show up in game two. Well, they did play better in game two, but the story of the game was Draymond Green. Green lead the charge with 28 points with five 3-pointers, seven rebounds and five assists as Golden State cruised to a 110-77 win in Oakland to take a 2-0 lead in the NBA finals.

The 33-point win was the Warriors' most lopsided ever in a finals game - and they have won the first two by a combined 48 points (NBA). It took a little while for the Splash brothers to find their groove, but once they did Cleveland had a lot of trouble trying to keep up and they were totally outplayed the rest of the night. Cleveland took a two point lead at the end of the opening quarter, which made you think if the Cavs may have the gumption to take this game and send the series. Lebron had another solid game finishing with 19 points, which snapped the streak he had of 25 straight playoff games with 20 or more points. While Lebron had trouble finding his handle in this game, Klay Thompson eventually found his. Thompson got hot after halftime to finish with 17 points as Golden State became the first team to go ahead 2-0 in the finals since the Lakers in 2009 against Orlando (NBA).

One of the bigger storylines was the injury to Kevin Love, who got hurt in the 3rd quarter and left the game with concussion like symptoms. He went up for a rebound got smacked in the head and went down in a heap. He left the game and did not return. Cleveland had a lot of trouble trying to rebound for the loss of Kevin Love in the ball game, really showing no life after he got hurt. Now I give Kevin Love credit for trying to gut it out, he did drill a big three pointer on his next possession after he got hit, but that was all he was really able to do. If Love has to miss significant time here in the finals, Channning Frye is the Cavs only option at the Forward/Center position at the moment, which could spell a little bit of trouble for the Cavs.

Love getting hurt last year and missing the finals could be viewed as a reason why Cleveland lost in last years finals. Now he's out again and it may start to creep back into the minds of Cavs fans that this could happen again this year. Lebron was getting smothered late in the ball game and was not really getting good looks all night. He did score 14 of his 19 points in the 2nd quarter but that was about it. What Cleveland couldn't do that Golden State did, was they really moved the ball around well. I've never really seen a team move the ball around the perimeter any better then what I saw the Warriors do on Sunday night. Don't believe me, here's a small sample of that sick ball movement:


That is really what separates the Warriors for the Cavaliers. Cleveland really relied on Lebron and small ball when Love left the game, which is something that wasn't really working. Cleveland isn't really built to be that kinda team, where as the Warriors are. Golden State is a fast paced basketball team, one that plays its best game when they're moving the ball well and finding the open man to hit their shots. That's what great teams do, they find the open guy who has the best angle to shoot at. Cleveland has trouble doing that.

With the series returning to Cleveland for the next two games, the Cavaliers have a lot of defensive problems and rotation issues to sort out if they want to keep their Finals hopes alive. Game 3 will be played at Quicken Loans Arena on Wednesday, June 8.

Warriors Bench Clutch In Game One

Doesn't matter what sport you follow, come playoff time, champions always find a way to get it done. There's a reason why the Golden State Warriors are the defending NBA Champions. Sure they have the Splash Brothers in Klay Thompson and Stephen Curry. Yes they also have Draymond Green to round out their big three. Sure Curry and Thompson had a solid game, as they combined for 20 points, numbers that are well below the standards they had set for themselves. Oh on this night it would be the bench, in particular Shaun Livingston, who would carry Golden State to the game one victory.

What was the biggest surprise out of this entire basketball game was the fact that the All-Star back court that has been so good all year, turned in its weakest performance of the playoffs. It drove head coach Steve Kerr crazy. No matter. The rest of Steve Kerr’s roster plowed forward as if nothing was the matter. It really was a thing of beauty, depending on how you look at it, that there was such one-sidedness in the battle of the supporting cast. Cleveland's best players outplayed that of Golden State. Kyrie Irving had 26 points to lead all scorers. Lebron dropped 23 points and Kevin Love chipped in 17 points. The high powered big three for Golden State wasn't as effective. Klay Thompson had just nine points, Stephen Curry dropped eleven and Draymond Green dropped 16. Golden State's bench outscored their Cavaliers counterparts by a 45–10 margin, with Shaun Livingston scoring a season-high 20 points to double up Cleveland’s reserves all by himself. Livingston hit eight of his 10 shots, peppering the Cavaliers with his signature mid-range jumpers. All of this really started late in the basketball game.

Golden State held a four point lead at the end of the 1st quarter, which makes a statement that Cleveland was able to hang around. Golden State started to pull away in the 2nd quarter and went into halftime with a 52-43 lead. Then something happened. The wheels started to fall off a little bit for the Warriors. Cleveland managed to find their game a little bit in the 3rd quarter. They came out like a house of fire, played good defense and by the end of that 3rd quarter, the Cavaliers actually had a lead in the basketball game. Cleveland outscored Golden State 25-22 in the 3rd and carried a 74-68 lead into the final frame. You know things were going wrong for the Warriors when Steve Kerr shattered his white board in half with a karate chop, he was so angry.

Then the Warriors managed to flip the switch in the 4th quarter, thanks to Shaun Livingston. Golden State outscored Cleveland 30-21 in the final quarter. What sold it for the Warriors was, unlike against Oklahoma City, they were able to get more open looks against the Cavs. Yes I know Curry and Thompson both struggled in game one but the Warriors bench more than made up for it. With Cleveland, they got the huge start from their big boys, but their bench disappeared, which is something that hadn't really happened during the first three rounds of the playoffs. Offensively, a no-show from J.R. Smith (three points on 1-of-3 shooting in 36 minutes) and most of his bench, including Channing Frye and Matthew Dellavedova, made it easier for the Warriors to pay extra attention to James and Kyrie Irving without fear of reprisal.

Golden State did what all great teams do and they made adjustments on how to be able to contend with what the Cavaliers were doing in the 3rd quarter. A lot of credit is going to go to the Warriors offense, as it should. But at the same time the Golden State defense deserves credit as well. Golden State forced 17 Cleveland turnovers, which the Warriors turned into 25 points. Cleveland was making mistakes in the late stages of the game and Golden State capitalized all over it. Andre Iguodala was fantastic again on the defensive side of the ball, making life in the paint miserable for Cleveland in this basketball game.

Cleveland did a fairly good job of keeping the Splash Brothers in check. But if they want to have a chance to steal game two of the series, which is Sunday night in Oakland, they need to cut down on turnovers, move the ball better, knock down open shots, limit Golden State’s easiest opportunities. Easier said than done I know, but that will be the focus of the Cavaliers heading into Sunday night!

Conor Sheary Overtime Heroics

Every once in a while, a hero will emerge in the playoffs from a most unlikely source. It can be a goalie making a big save at the right time, it could be a big gun scoring when its needed most. In this case it was a kid playing in his first season in the big league that proved to be the difference. Conor Sheary found the back of the net three minutes into overtime to give the Penguins a 2-1 win and a 2-0 lead in the series heading back out West.

Everything started off on pretty even footing. San Jose actually found their skating legs early in this hockey game, something that they didn't really manage to do in game one. Pittsburgh still held an 11-6 advantage in shots in the opening period, but San Jose hung around and made a game of it. Both starting goalies, Matt Murray of the Penguins and Martin Jones of the Sharks, had to be good at the start. San Jose forward Tomas Hertl had the best chances for the Sharks, ringing a puck off the post on three different occasions in that opening period alone. San Jose got their chances early, but weren't able to connect and find the back of the net. So we headed into the opening intermission without a goal being scored.

To the 2nd period we go, things opened up a lot more. Pittsburgh once again took control of the hockey game, outshooting the Sharks 12-5 in the middle frame. Martin Jones had to make some fantastic saves, really keeping the Sharks in the hockey game. It's been pretty well documented that the "HBK" line has been really clicking for the Penguins all playoffs. They struck again in the 2nd period.  San Jose had trouble holding onto the puck leading to the Penguins goal. Roman Polak of the Sharks lost the handle on the puck, but got it back. He tried passing it ti Brenden Dillon, but Dillon got stripped of the puck by Carl Hagelin who gave it to Nick Bonino, who fired the puck on goal. The shot was tipped by a diving Polak, who tried to re-direct the puck away. He defelcted it but right to a crashing Kessel, who tapped the puck into the open cage at the 8:20 mark of the middle frame to give the Penguins the 1-0. For Kessel, it was 10th of the playoffs.

Moving into the 3rd period, San Jose finally found there skating legs again. The Sharks controlled the play, outshooting the Penguins 9-6 in the final frame. Scoring chances were abound for both teams, with each one hitting a goal post in the final frame. Malkin hit one for the Penguins, and Joe Pavelski rang one off the pipes for San Jose. The Sharks finally broke through with 4:05 left in the hockey game when Justin Braun bagged his first goal of the playoffs. It was a slapper from the top of the circle that beat Murray high over the glove. Murray never saw the shot, as he had bodies in front of him. Keep that fact in mind. Nobody else scored again and we went to overtime.

For the fifth time in the last six years, game two of the finals went into overtime. It took two minutes and thirty five seconds for this to happen:


For Conor Sheary, it was his fourth goal of the playoffs. Same thing happened on this goal that it did on the Braun goal, the goalie never really saw the shot, as they had bodies in front of the net. Pittsburgh now has a 2-0 series lead heading back to San Jose for game three on Saturday.

As mentioned before, this was the fifth time in the last six years that game two went to overtime:
2016 – SJS 1 at PIT 2 (Conor Sheary, 2:35 of OT)
2014 – NYR 4 at LAK 5 (Dustin Brown, 10:26 of 2OT)
2013 – BOS 2 at CHI 1 (Daniel Paille, 13:48 of OT)
2012 – LAK 2 at NJD 1 (Jeff Carter, 13:42 of OT)
2011 – BOS 2 at VAN 3 (Alexandre Burrows, 0:11 of OT)

Since the Final went to the best-of-seven format in 1939, teams that have taken a 2-0 series lead have gone on to capture the Stanley Cup 89.8% of the time (44 of 49 series), including each of the past two instances (2012 and 2014, LAK).