Today in Penguins history, the franchises first Stanley Cup victory was assured by the quick glove of Frank Pietrangelo.
Frank hadn't played very much all season long and was thrown into, as Mike Lange called it, "A Pressure Cooker Situation" after Tom Barrasso went down with an injury. This was his first playoff game ever, with his team facing elimination in game 6 of Round 1 versus the New Jersey Devils.
Pittsburgh had a 1 goal lead going into the third period and Pietrangelo was being abused with shot after shot. As Slava Fetisov took a shot stick side on Pietrangelo, Peter Stastny came up the glove side with an eye on potting a rebound. Frank played the initial shot but couldn't hang on and was caught out of the crease as the puck caromed directly to Stastny's stick. Game over? Not quite.
Diving across the goal mouth, Pietrangelo caught the puck in his Heaton-model trapper, gloving Stastny's shot out of mid air, and the Pens hung on for the win. He then went on to start game 7, shutting out the Devils and helping the Pens march on toward their first Stanley Cup. "The Save" as it has affectionately become known to Pens fans, will go down as one of the biggest in franchise history.
