Ice hockey: Detroit reach final in flying fashion
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Your support makes all the difference.The Detroit Red Wings reached the Stanley Cup final for the second time in three years, dethroning the champions, Colorado Avalanche, with a 3-1 victory on Monday in the sixth game of the Western Conference final to take the best-of-seven series 4-2. The Red Wings now go to Philadelphia on Saturday to play the Flyers in the first championship game.
Philadelphia won the Eastern Conference final when they beat New York Rangers 4-2 to take the series 4-1 on Sunday.
"Our guys showed up tonight," Scottie Bowman, the Detroit coach, said. "We dominated the game and played as if we didn't want to go back to Denver." Detroit, who had 42 shots on goal to Colorado's 16, overran the Avalanche for the first 55 minutes before Scott Young scored off a rebound to cut the margin to 2-1. But Brendan Shanahan scored into an empty net with 30 seconds remaining to seal the victory.
Martin Lapointe and Sergei Fedorov fired the other goals for the Red Wings, whose 42-year drought in the Stanley Cup is the longest in the National Hockey League. Detroit reached the Cup final in 1995 but were swept aside in four games by the New Jersey Devils.
The Red Wings, returning from a 6-0 loss in Denver in the fifth game, outshot Colorado in the first period 14-3. But Patrick Roy kept the Wings from scoring. He stopped Viacheslav Fetisov's blast from just inside the blue line 90 seconds into the contest. He also got a glove on Shanahan's wrister from the low slot with 8:30 to go and smothered Steve Yzerman's wrist shot with just under two minutes left.
The Avalanche finally had a scoring chance early in the second period, but Mike Vernon turned aside Valeri Kamensky's wrister.
Detroit finally beat Roy 3:29 into this period when Lapointe hopped off the bench, took a pass from Igor Larionov and hit a slap shot which tipped into the net off the heel of Roy's glove. Roy, however, kept it a one- goal game by stopping Lapointe's backhander with 5:32 remaining.
Detroit kept up the pressure early in the third period and Fedorov put home his own rebound for his third goal of the series and a 2-0 lead. The Avalanche replied with 5:12 remaining. Vernon stopped Adam Deadmarsh's shot from the left circle, but was helpless as Young scored his fourth play-off goal on the rebound.
It was all too late for Colorado and it was left to Shanahan to put the game and the series beyond them in the dying seconds.
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