TAMPA, Fla. – Courage, my word.
The Pittsburgh Penguins stared into the face of possible elimination with a steely-eyed determination. They talked a big game before delivering a big game.
Now both they and the Tampa Bay Lightning have a chance to play the kind of game you spend a lifetime dreaming about – Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final. Sixty minutes – and perhaps a bit more – to determine who plays for the Stanley Cup.
“Man, it’s pretty wild,” said Penguins winger Phil Kessel.
It took a focused, precise effort for 40 minutes and a scrambled, breathless mess over the final 20, but the Penguins managed to deliver on Evgeni Malkin’s promise. They’re heading home with a game to play.
There’s a clear pattern developing in this series.
Pittsburgh has gotten the better end of the shots counter in all six games, but Tampa still finds itself with enough dangerous chances to win. On Tuesday it was the Penguins stars that stepped up in a big way – with Kessel scoring on a 5-on-3 power play and defenceman Kris Letang making it 2-0 and Sidney Crosby going back to the future.
He grabbed the puck in neutral zone in the final minute of the second period and found a lane between Ondrej Palat, Anton Stralman and Victor Hedman. Then he went five-hole on Andrei Vasilevskiy. It held up as the game-winner – the third the captain’s delivered in this series.
“As soon as I turned with the puck, I could tell they were probably in the middle of coming up the gap,” said Crosby. “So I had a little bit more space. So I just tried to get some speed off that turnover there that (Patric Hornqvist) made, and had a lane and just tried to hit it.”
Even after they built that 3-0 lead, there were plenty of heart-stopping moments.
Fortunately for the Penguins, those seem to be the times when rookie goalie Matt Murray is at his calmest. He was back in the crease after watching Marc-Andre Fleury start two nights earlier and faced 17 shots over a 17-minute stretch in the third period after seeing just 11 over the first 40.
Pretty good way to get an early start on your birthday celebrations: Murray turns 22 on Wednesday.
“Matt was huge for us there the last 10 minutes,” said Hornqvist. “He’s 21 years old, but he plays like he’s 30.”
It was a gutsy team effort all around – the kind the Lightning have become known for the last few years. They continue to play without Steven Stamkos and Ben Bishop in this series, but you won’t hear an excuse uttered in that dressing room.
This is a group of gamers that need only look to last year’s Eastern Conference final for motivation as they head out on the road. Last May they lost a Game 6 here to the New York Rangers before booking a trip to the final with a victory at Madison Square Garden.
You can bet they’ll bring their best on Thursday.
“We had our chance to knock them out tonight,” said Lightning coach Jon Cooper. “Give Pittsburgh a ton of credit for the way they played and how they handled things. They volleyed the ball into our court, and now it’s time for us to smash it back.”
At the end of a long, winding season these are the types of games you live for. When the lights get this bright you get a chance to see the will that accompanies the skill that allowed these athletes to reach the NHL in the first place.
This game is played between the ears as well as on the ice.
The Penguins managed to bounce back after a potentially deflating loss in Game 5 – one where they squandered 2-0 and 3-2 leads before losing in overtime.
To speak with them here on Tuesday morning left you with the impression they were completely unaffected by the possibility of a premature end to the season. There was confidence to be found in every conversation.
“I just told them to embrace the moment,” said coach Mike Sullivan. “It’s a great opportunity for us. These are the types of circumstances where you have an opportunity to write your own story, and that’s what we wanted to do. There’s certain things that go on out there that you can’t control, but what you can control is your attitude, your determination, your work ethic, your never-say-die mindset.
“I think this group has it.”
They received an early break when a Jonathan Drouin goal was overturned by a razor-thin offside review. An unusual delay of game penalty where Hedman fired the puck the length of the ice and over the glass set up the 5-on-3 where Kessel opened the scoring.
In between, the Penguins controlled wide stretches of play to the point that Murray didn’t feel he faced a true scoring chance until early in the second period.
Even with the late scramble, it was a performance to be proud of.
“We’ve been a confident group for three months,” said defenceman Olli Maatta. “We know our system works if we play within it. We’ve just got to play the right way, and today we did it. We know we can win against anybody if we play the right way and play 60 minutes.”
The Lightning feels the same way, which is why the series finale should be considered appointment viewing. Two great teams with everything on the line.
They’ll both have to live with the consequences of whatever happens under that pressure.
