The Save

In the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs in 1991, the Pittsburgh Penguins trailed the New Jersey Devils 3 games to 2. Their #1 goaltender, Tom Barrasso, was injured in game 5, leading some to believe that the season was nearly over. Barrasso's backup was a young man from Niagra Falls, Ontario, named Frank Pietrangelo. He was drafted by the Penguins in 1988 to be used as a solid back-up, and was never viewed as a player with great potential who could make it as a starting goaltender in the NHL. However, with Barrasso injured, Pietrangelo got his chance to start games 6 and 7, both must-win games if the Penguins wanted to move on to the next round. In the first period of game 6, after a face-off in his own zone, a quick lateral pass left Pietrangelo on one side of the net and the Devil's Peter Stastny on the other side with the puck. It should have been an easy goal for Stastny, who basically only had to shoot into the empty net. Out of nowhere, Pietrangelo dove to his left and grabbed the puck out of mid-air as it came off of Stastny's stick. The career back-up saved not only a goal but the entire season, as the Penguins went on to win game 6 by a score of 4-3. The next game, he recorded a shut out as the Penguins beat the Devils 4-0 to move onto the next round, eventually winning the first of two Stanley Cups. His game 6 save became known in Pittsburgh sports lore simply as "The Save." You can see a YouTube video of it here (click for link).

In my previous post, I said that the Penguins would win game 6 if a hero emerged. That hero was Rob Scuderi, the quietly reliable defenseman who blocked multiple shots during the game, but most importantly blocked an open net goal with only seconds left in the third period to save the Penguins 1 goal lead and allow them to win the game.



These two examples from the past and present show that heroes don't always have to come from expected places. They can often be most effective when they come unexpectedly out of the blue. To win game 7, to go into hostile territory and defeat a superior opponent, everyone on that team needs to step up and be a hero. There's no other way to do it.