DETROIT – Sidney Crosby lifted the Stanley Cup, injured knee and all, with a smile of satisfaction as wide as a goal crease. A few handoffs later, the silver trophy was passed to Mario Lemieux, and how fitting. Two stars, two generations, two captains joined together by one Stanley Cup that took some bad teams and the good drafts that followed them, a tremendous comeback and one unlikely Game 7 goal scorer to accomplish.

The Penguins overcame the NHL’s 38-year-old Game 7 road jinx, Crosby’s mid-game injury and a furious third-period surge to beat Detroit 2-1 on Friday night, win the Stanley Cup and prevent the Red Wings from winning their fifth league championship in 12 seasons.

As he kissed the cup not once but twice, Lemieux’s grin was nearly as big as Sid the Kid’s, and why not?

To Lemieux, the first Hall of Famer to win the Stanley Cup as a player and then as a primary owner, Crosby is like family, a player who might be as good as any in the NHL but one who is so grounded he still lives in Lemieux’s guest house.

For all of Conn Smythe Trophy winner Evgeni Malkin‘s Lemieux-like moves and can-score-at-any-moment skills, Crosby is the Penguins player who best emulates Lemieux, who saved a twice-bankrupt Penguins franchise as a player and again as an owner.

So when the 21-year-old Crosby got the assist on the hand-off to Lemieux, the icon-turned-owner beamed like a proud father as he talked about the youngest captain to take a Penguins team to the Stanley Cup.

Lemieux had that distinction himself at age 24 in 1991, but this is Sid’s team now. Sid’s championship team, although it took many, many hands to do it.

“It means everything to him,” Lemieux said. “This kid, all he thinks about is winning championships. His whole life is training and practicing and playing hockey. He’s a great kid, a perfect hockey player, that’s all he does, think about hockey every day. It’s amazing. I wish I would have had that discipline back then.”

The Penguins survived numerous scares in becoming the first team since the 1971 Montreal Canadiens and only the third in 15 attempts in NHL history to win a finals Game 7 on the road. The first since those Ken Dryden-led Canadiens, too, to win two Game 7s on the road in the same playoffs, partly because Malkin’s 36 points were the most since Wayne Gretzky had 40 in 1993.

It seems inconceivable the Penguins could rally from series deficits of 2-0 and 3-2 to win the third Stanley Cup in franchise history without Crosby or Malkin scoring a goal in the last three games, yet they did. Or with Crosby playing one shift in the final half of Game 7 after he injured a knee during a mid-ice collision with Johan Franzen.

Or that the Penguins would win their first finals Game 7 in their history by getting the game’s first two goals from Max Talbot, the one-time fourth-line center and eighth-round draft pick who has played nearly every role on the team except goaltender.

“It might be something out of a storybook, but I don’t care,” said Talbot, who also scored two goals in Game 4. “We won the Cup.”

WASHINGTON (AP)—For a guy who supposedly shies from the limelight, Sidney Crosby(notes) was as good as could be in the first Game 7 of his career.

The rest of the Pittsburgh Penguins were pretty close to perfect, too.

Crosby scored twice to raise his NHL-leading playoff goal total to 12, his teammates shut down his big rival, Alex Ovechkin, most of the night, and the Penguins beat the Washington Capitals 6-2 on Wednesday to reach the Eastern Conference finals for the second consecutive season.

Crosby “won’t say he likes front and center, the big stage, or anything like that,” Penguins forward Bill Guerin(notes) said. “But he really knows how to perform in it.”

That’s for sure.

Still, Crosby took no outward pleasure in coming out ahead in the second-round series otherwise known as Sid the Kid vs. Alexander the Great.

“It feels good, just because of the way the series went,” Crosby said, “not particularly because it was me and him.”

Everyone chipped in for the Penguins, from the stars to the second thoughts, from regular-season scoring leader Evgeni Malkin’s(notes) two assists, to fourth-line forward Craig Adams’(notes) first goal in 42 career postseason games. Second-year defenseman Kris Letang(notes), 38-year-old Guerin and Jordan Staal(notes) scored, too. Marc-Andre Fleury(notes) made 19 saves and didn’t allow a goal until his team led 5-0.

It’s Saturday Night Fever in the sports world and the match ups couldn’t get any better, well maybe a little.

Tonight (back to front) we have Ricky Hatton, the junior welterweight world champion, who stands in the way of Manny Pacquiao, the pound-for-pound king, who stands on the precipice of history.

In the second bout we have Sid “the kid” Crosby,left, and the Penguins taking on NHL MVP Alexander Ovechkin, right, and the high flying Washington Capitals. @ of NHL’s biggest and brightest star take the ice to see who will go to the Eastern Conference Finals. This is a great one and it’s only game 1.

And in the main bout, the heavy weight match-up we have Paul “the truth” Pierce, left, and the reigning champion Celtics taking on big shot Ben Gordon, right, and the team that is demanding respect, the Chicago Bulls. If you haven’t the 8 million overtimes in this series yet… than you better not miss this one especially since it GAME 7! Last game Ray Allen went off looking like a crazed monster shooting 9-three pointers, including 3 of them in the clutch to tie the game in the winding seconds, tying a NBA Playoff record. This one is sure to be a thriller.

Here’s how ESPN’s Scoop Jackson sees it:

CHICAGO — What if someone had told Muhammad Ali after the Thrilla in Manila that he’d have to go another 15 with Joe Frazier … in two days?

What if someone said to Rafael Nadal after last year’s epic Wimbledon final that he and Roger Federer would have to go five more sets … in two days?

What if someone whispered in Kellen Winslow’s ear as he was on the verge of heat exhaustion in that 1982 AFC divisional playoff game in Miami that he had to play another 15 minutes of overtime … immediately?

This is where we are. Game 7 in the Bulls-Celtics series will be more like Game 8. With the total time played in the seven overtime periods, they’ve almost completed an extra game. The six games have featured 106 lead changes. Take out Game 3 and you have five games decided by more than three points. All games decided in the final possession.

And that’s more than likely what we’ll get in Game 7 on Saturday (7 p.m. CT, ESPN Radio 1000): The team that has the ball last will be the team that advances.

If we were honest with ourselves, we’d say we’ve seen nothing like this before. We always talk about how great Game 7s are in sports, but there has never been a lead-up to any Game 7 quite like this. And with that said, if you’re a Bulls fan, don’t be sad if it ends here.

It has to end there for someone.

Between now and tipoff, you will hear often from Bulls players and coaches (rightfully so) that “All the pressure is on Boston.” Don’t fall for it. Don’t be a sucker. Pressure, if taken for what it actually means, is a component of your comfort level. The Celtics have been in this position before. The Bulls haven’t.

And this is where last season will play a bigger role than most think … or are willing to believe. The fact that the Celtics (even though they had KG at the time) went through two Game 7s just last spring and ended the season with rings on their fingers is easily something Doc Rivers can tap into. Vinny Del Negro and his staff don’t have that.

The minute the Bulls begin to believe the pressure is on Boston, they’re defeated. Pressure isn’t always about the team that has the most to lose. The pressure might be on the team that is the most unfamiliar with being in this territory.

Think about it.

The Bulls, however, will definitely have their chances. Ray Allen will not have another game like Game 6. Just as Rivers said Allen “went off” for 51 because his legs were rested after fouling out early in Game 5, the same philosophy must apply on the other end. Allen should be tired. Legs done. Ray should be Ray again, not Jesus.

KG will not do a Willis Reed impersonation and walk onto the court in his sweats to ignite the crowd and inspire his teammates. This series seems like it’s something out of the Disney vault, but it ain’t. This is real reality TV. KG is hurt; he’s not playing or going to pretend like he will.

Now, the one problem — and it could be a big one — for Chicago will be trying to contain Ben Gordon if the game is close. See, BG fouling out and not being able to contribute in the overtimes of Game 6 will probably make him overanxious and feel like he has to make up for that in Game 7. That’s something the Bulls cannot afford to have happen.

But the question is, who’s going to stop it from happening?

Del Negro is a rookie coach. He’s not in a position to stop it because he hasn’t been with BG long enough. Derrick Rose can’t stop it because he hasn’t been in the league long enough to tell BG what’s necessary to win games like this. Ben’s not going to stop it because … well, that’s him. That’s what superstars do. That’s what they’re supposed to do.

It’s just going to be a matter of how it gets done. If the Bulls can find a way to run plays for Ben — re-read, plays for Ben — as opposed to just giving him the ball as he crosses half court with 20 seconds left on the shot clock and watching him try to figure out a way to get a shot off, then they have a chance of having Ben “shock the world,” as opposed to shaking up theirs. If they can find a way to get him the ball off screens with somewhere closer to eight seconds on the shot clock and somewhere around or just inside the 3-point line on several (not every!) occasions, then they have a legit shot (pun intended) at winning.

Basically, if Ben Gordon comes into the game with the same mentality and efficiency that Allen did for Boston in Game 6, then Orlando will be the Bulls’ next destination. But how do you tell a hero not to be a hero? Especially if he feels he might have let his team down in the previous game.

So basically it will come down to a mind game. Who will make the smarter decisions in the moment. A moment that is still fresh in the Celtics’ memories from just last postseason. A moment they lived to talk about … twice.

And after Game 7 — which, if the Bulls and the Celts stick to the script, will only deepen the validation that this is, game-to-game, the greatest playoff series in the history of any sport — we will see who let the supposed pressure get to them. As clichéd as it sounds, I think it applies to this series more than any other: It’s too bad one of these teams has to lose.

WASHINGTON — ESPN reports that the series between the Rangers and the Capitals is now OVER! And it seems that it will be the Capitals not the Rangers heading into 2nd round. The Rangers who had a 3-1 series lead collapsed, losing 3 straight games to Ovechkin and the Caps, and receiving a early exit from the playoffs. Here’s what ESPN had to report:

Ted Leonsis smiled from ear to ear outside the Washington Capitals‘ dressing room.

Ten years after buying the NHL club, the Capitals owner finally has a playoff series victory under his belt.

“I’m not a virgin anymore!” said Leonsis.

Neither is Alexander Ovechkin. The superstar winger survived a stressful and dramatic seven-game series to earn his first second-round birth in his second try. Up next? Ho-hum, just Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and the Pittsburgh Penguins. No interest in that series at all.

“Looks like we’re playing Pittsburgh,” Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau said moments after Carolina’s dramatic 4-3 win in New Jersey. “Get ready for the circus.”

Before the circus, however, was the comeback.

Down 3-1 to the seventh-seeded New York Rangers, the second-seeded Capitals showed their resilience in reeling off three consecutive wins. And they had better have. They needed to win this season. No more building, no more learning. It was time to win.

“You can’t just have good seasons. You need to do something in the playoffs,” said a jubilant George McPhee, the team’s GM and architect. “We really needed this. The way our community has embraced this team and what’s going on in this marketplace is unbelievable. I never believed it could be this good.

“To have the kind of buzz that’s around this team, I thought that could only come if we won a Cup, but this market has really responded. It feels great to see what’s going on here.”

The fans at Verizon Center lifted their team in the third period. Even the more veteran observers of the game were awed at how loud the place got as the crowd cheered on its team with the score tied at 1 in the third period. Bring your earplugs, Penguins.

To read more on what ESPN had to report, please click here

WASHINGTON — This is no longer about Henrik Lundqvist single-handedly beating the Washington Capitals.

That may have been the case in Game 1, but as the New York Rangers departed the nation’s capital Saturday evening with a stunning 2-0 lead in their best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarterfinals series with the favored Washington Capitals, one thing is abundantly clear: There’s only one team paying the price in this series right now.

As underlined by their whopping 29 blocked shots in Saturday’s 1-0 victory at Verizon Center, the seventh-seeded Blueshirts are laying it all on the line in their bid to upset the second-seeded Capitals. They are sacrificing their bodies for the greater good, taking hits to make smart plays and collectively committing themselves to a shut-down game that’s limited one of the NHL’s premier offensive machines to three goals in two games.

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