PITTSBURGH – They started setting up lawn chairs outside Consol Energy Center just after daybreak. By the time the Pittsburgh Penguins arrived for a game 49 years in the making, the streets around the building were completely flooded with fans.
“I couldn’t even get to the rink,” said defenceman Olli Maatta. “It was busy.”
“There was a lot of people outside,” added teammate Bryan Rust. “Traffic was terrible.”
The day carried an historical feel in one of North America’s great sports cities. None of the local teams had won a championship inside city limits since the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates and Bill Mazeroski – the hero of that World Series champion – was among the record crowd of 18,680 in attendance.
The stage was set for one of the greatest parties you’d ever see.
Instead, the Penguins will head back to California looking to close out the organization’s fourth Stanley Cup at the Shark Tank on Sunday night.
“It would have been nice to win it here, but it’s not easy,” said Maatta. “It’s not going to be easy. It’s a good team down that way, and it’s going to be tough.”
The Penguins felt they did enough to close it out in Game 5. They fired 46 shots at San Jose’s Martin Jones but couldn’t break through for a third goal that might have tipped the scales in their favour.
Chris Kunitz hit a post. Phil Kessel hit both posts. Sidney Crosby was at the top of the crease, whacking away. Nick Bonino had a backhander denied by a ridiculous left pad kick.
Some of the Pittsburgh players suggested that they’d likely find a better result if they simply duplicated this performance. Still ahead 3-2 in the series, they have two opportunities to close things out.
“I think when you generate that many good quality scoring chances, the power play was working the puck around pretty good, yeah, I think that if we do all of those things and come with the same mindset, understand the situation, and go after them right from the start [we’ll have success],” said Crosby.
This still amounted to a missed opportunity.
The Penguins franchise was born in 1967 and had never even played a game on home ice where it could win the Stanley Cup. There was an expectant feeling in the air – with the friends and family of the players having scrambled to get to the city in case of a celebration.
There was word that some fans were paying as much as $11,000 per ticket on the secondary market, and they were rewarded with a wildly entertaining game. It just didn’t include the result that Pittsburghers so badly craved.
Improbably, the Sharks jumped out to a 2-0 lead before the three-minute mark and the Penguins rallied to tie it by 5:06. It felt like the roof might come off.
When San Jose went back ahead 3-2 before the intermission, it matched the most amount of goals scored in any game of this series, and only 15 minutes had elapsed. With Jones standing on his head, the Penguins wouldn’t score again the rest of the night.
“That’s just life,” said winger Patric Hornqvist. “That’s just the way it went. We had a great opportunity here, now we have to take it there. We go to San Jose in two days. We have to be better in the first five minutes.
“If we correct that, we will find a way to win.”
Afterwards, Murray acknowledged battling some nerves before the biggest game of his life. The 22-year-old felt like he settled in after a rocky start.
One of the real strengths of this Penguins team has been its ability to bounce back – it’s only dropped back-to-back games once since January – and that resilience will be tested again when Pittsburgh takes a second shot at winning the Stanley Cup.
“No one is going to hand it to you, we know that,” said Murray. “That’s the beauty of a series. Just play. Just play through it. Whatever happens, you just stick to your gameplan and get through it.”
They won’t want to think much about what could have been here. They also don’t want to try their luck by returning to Consol for a Game 7 next week.
By the time Sharks captain Joe Pavelski hit an empty net with 80 seconds remaining on Thursday, workers were scurrying around the bowels of the arena removing signs that had been put up behind the Zamboni entrance directing family members where to go for a Stanley Cup celebration.
Instead, the champagne was kept on ice. The Cup remained in its case. It’s not time for summer just yet.
“It just wasn’t our day,” said Maatta.
