War-Torn Penguins Won’t Go Quietly Into Night

It’s often said, here and elsewhere, that the pursuit of the Stanley Cup is the most arduous odyssey in North American team sports. It brings out the best — and sometimes the worst — in the competitors, and leaves lasting memories behind.On Monday night, all of the odds seemed stacked against Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins. They’d blown a 2-0 lead in Game 5 at the Joe Louis Arena and were down 3-2 as the final minutes ticked away. The Red Wings’ fans were cacophonously chanting, “We want the Cup! We want the Cup!” An on-ice celebration seemed a fait accompli, but the Penguins had other ideas.Demonstrating composure that belied their inexperience, they tied the score with 35 seconds remaining, human pincushion Maxime Talbot battling his way to the front of the net and burying a rebound past Wings goaltender Chris Osgood. And after nearly 50 minutes of overtime hockey, the Pens completed the comeback when former New Jersey Devils forward Petr Sykora fired a power-play wrist shot past Osgood to force tonight’s Game 6 in Pittsburgh.Though Sykora was Monday’s hero by virtue of his game-winning goal, the biggest key to the Penguins’ victory was goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury. He turned away 55 of 58 shots fired upon him through what turned out to be almost 110 minutes of nearly nonstop action, including some incredibly acrobatic stops.Fleury’s physical abilities were never a concern — no NHL goalie is quicker at moving from post to post — and now he has squelched all doubts about his mental toughness. His positioning throughout Game 5 was stellar, and he seemed completely unfazed by the near-constant presence of crease-crashing forwards Tomas Holmstrom, Johan Franzen, and Dan Cleary.Of course, Fleury also gets plenty of help from his fearless mates, who threw themselves in front of another 31 Red Wings shots. Throughout these playoffs, the Pens’ willingness to toss their bodies in harm’s way has defined them, and their Rocky-like propensity to take a beating and keep on standing is a testament to the leadership of mercurial head coach Michel Therien. While he might not be a master of chalkboard X’s and O’s, he is one of the game’s most effective motivators.Pittsburgh native Ryan Malone took a puck to the face and came back soon thereafter, looking like he’d gone 15 hard rounds with Kimbo Slice but still prepared to take a regular, punishing shift. Sergei Gonchar crashed headfirst into the boards late in the second period, suffering an undisclosed injury that forced him off the ice for more than an hour of hockey time, but he somehow summoned the strength to join his teammates for what turned out to be the game-winning power play. And Sykora is playing in this series despite being severely hampered by a serious “upper body injury.”Across the board, the Penguins are demonstrating uncommon toughness, and that is what’s differentiating them from the similarly talented Edmonton Oilers team that they’re often compared to, one that was swept in the 1983 Finals by the dynastic New York Islanders.In his autobiography, Wayne Gretzky recalled walking past the Islanders’ locker room at the conclusion of that series expecting to see the players raucously celebrating with the Cup. Instead, he saw the Isles’ stars nursing their wounds, “limping around with black eyes and bloody mouths. It looked more like a morgue in there than a champion’s locker room. And here we were perfectly fine and healthy.”Teammate Kevin Lowe walked beside Gretzky that night and observed, “That’s how you win championships.” Perhaps more than anything else they went through, that experience outside the Isles’ locker room paved the way for the youthful Oilers to go on to win five Stanley Cups, beginning the following spring when they ended the Islanders’ four-year run as champions.Regardless of the outcome of this series, no such allegations can be levied against these Penguins. They are literally leaving everything on the ice — blood, sweat, and tears — and have made it clear that they belong on hockey’s brightest stage. Scrappy and resilient, they’ve grown up quickly this spring, captain Crosby included.He leads all playoff participants with 26 points in 19 games, but the stats aren’t really the story; he always gets his numbers. Over and over in this series, Crosby has taken the hard route to the goal, battling through the Red Wings’ defense. Where his gamesmanship and penalty drawing were a topic of great controversy earlier in these playoffs, the focus must now instead shift instead to his selfless leadership.No forward logged more ice time for the Pens than Crosby during Monday night’s epic battle (34:37), and yet he still managed to consistently back-check and provide support in the defensive zone, shift after shift. As with the rest of his teammates, it’s clear that Crosby understands what it takes to succeed at this time of year.The Penguins have nicely grown into their role as Cup finalists, and should they buck the odds and prevail in this series, it will be because they’ve dug deep and come together as a team, tough and deserving. It will be because they’re willingly paying the price to share in the glory.Mr. Greenstein is the editor in chief of InsideHockey.com.

War-Torn Penguins Won’t Go Quietly Into Night

War-Torn Penguins Won’t Go Quietly Into Night

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