Welcome Back, Stanley!, photo by radiospike photography

Spike writes that this photo of Red Wings captain Nik Lidstrom was taken after the Detroit Red Wings defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins to secure their 11th Stanley Cup. He has a ton of great Wings shots and says that his complete gallery of Red Wings photos will be on sale within hours.

For a while it looked to Wingnuts like the Red Wings were going to take fans to the edge of heaven and leave them there after a crushing game 5 loss. Last night fans gathered around their TVs, in the Joe Louis Arena and (lucky few) at Mellon Arena where their beloved Wings:

…played a perfect road game Wednesday night at Mellon Arena, defeating the Pittsburgh Penguins, 3-2, in Game 6 of the 2008 Stanley Cup Final to go wire-to-wire as the best team in the National Hockey League this season.

“It’s never easy,” Wings goalie Chris Osgood said. “Toughest trophy in sports to win; it lives for that name every year, that nickname. It was difficult, again. Pittsburgh is a great young team … gave us all we could handle. Probably one of the most difficult series I’ve played in a while. They have a talented team. They held on right to the end again. They kept pushing us still.”

Detroit Red Wings’ players, coaches and staff will participate in a parade to celebrate the 2008 Stanley Cup championship tomorrow (Friday, June 6) starting at 11 AM. The parade will end with a celebration rally at Hart Plaza in downtown Detroit. Click for all the details!

You can check Wikipedia’s 2008 Stanley Cup Playoffs entry for the Wings route to Lord Stanley’s Cup. Here’s a slideshow of photos from the Detroit Red Wings 2008 playoff run on Flickr (just the photos) and you’ll also want check out the Detroit Red Wings group, and this slideshow of Game 6 photos from the Red Wings site.