PITTSBURGH -- As soon as a crowd of reporters dispersed from Jordan Staal's dressing room spot, Tyler Kennedy turned, and loud enough for everyone to hear, asked his Penguins teammate why he was so grumpy.
"Because you took a shot at [me in practice]," Staal snapped in an equally audible tone before snarling at scrub Eric Godard as he tried to horn in on the discussion and was told to mind his own business.
It went back and forth for a couple of minutes until they all cracked up, letting the media in on the joke that had several Pittsburgh players in the know looking quite bemused. Still it seemed a bit incongruous considering most of them had just finished repeating their clichéd "take it one game at day," "we're not worrying about Game 7" and "we'll be fine if we play the game the way we can" comments with earnest looks to the assembled masses.
"We're trying to keep it light in here," Chris Kunitz said.
• Series: Red Wings 3, Penguins 2 | Talk!
They might as well since it beats the alternative. The Penguins are just one loss away from having their Stanley Cup dreams shattered at home by the Detroit Red Wings for the second year in a row. They are also armed with the knowledge that even if they win, they have to go back to Detroit where the Red Wings have been practically unbeatable in the playoffs.
Moreover, Pittsburgh is coming off its worst performance of the playoffs, one in which every aspect of its game, most noticeably its composure, seemed to collapse at the same time.
Meanwhile the veteran Red Wings, who already have a big advantage when it comes to experience in these kinds of things and an extra day of rest, were putting the best parts of their game together in the 5-0 thumping they delivered in Game 5 with a lineup that included MVP finalist Pavel Datsyuk for the first time in this series. Detroit played a dominant, if typically understated game, reminding the Penguins that while they might have kept pace with them before that night, there is still a difference between being getting to the Finals and actually winning it.
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| Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby have set up or scored eight of the Penguins' 10 goals in the Finals. (AP) |
"Our goal is for us to kind of take it to them," Detroit goalie Chris Osgood said. "We're going in fully rested and ready to go, and we've been here before with lots of games like this, so we know how to approach it.
"It's obviously a special game when you know you have a chance to win the Cup in one single hockey game, so I expect us to play our best game, I really do."
That should be a scary thought for the Penguins, even if they are telling themselves they can still come back because, well, they still can.
Pittsburgh feeds impressively off its home crowd and is 8-2 at Mellon Arena in the postseason, and it has the most dangerous player in the playoffs in Evgeni Malkin, who will be itching to rebound from an embarrassing individual performance in Game 5. Besides, the Penguins have shown the ability to recover from adversity this season, coming from 10th place in the standings just after the All-Star break to the playoffs and more recently, winning a Game 7 on the road in the second round after failing to close things out at home the game before.
"I think guys realize that when the chips are down, you have to be at your best and it takes everybody in order to get great results," captain Sidney Crosby said. "Knowing that guys have bounced back in the right way, I think that's a confidence level."
Maybe, but beyond the intangibles that may exist, there are some practical matters the Penguins have to improve on first beginning with their emotion control. Pittsburgh failed to keep itself in check after Detroit opened up a big lead in Game 5, and will be challenged to do so even more with the season on the line.
It wouldn't hurt either if Pittsburgh could get some offense at even strength because the Penguins have scored just four goals that way in this series and Detroit's penalty killers finally looked like they figured things out in Game 5. Most important though, Pittsburgh needs a big rebound from goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, who struggled enough Saturday to get pulled before the second period was over.
"It wasn't his fault, it was a situation where taking him out was a chance to give him a break and to see if that would spark us to get focused on playing the game better," Penguins coach Dan Bylsma said. "But Marc is the guy we believe in. He's going to be focused, and every guy in that room knows he's going to respond."
That's something the Red Wings expect from everyone on Pittsburgh, and why the veteran team insists it isn't getting ahead of itself.
"We know they're going to be a desperate hockey team, coming out hard so that's where you have to play that patient hockey," Red Wings captain Nicklas Lidstrom said. "Having a chance to win another [Cup] is a good feeling, but we know as a team that we're not there yet."
