Penguins must play desperate now

The Penguins finally got the hot start they were craving Wednesday night in Game 4.

The ending pushed them to the brink of elimination in their Eastern Conference quarterfinal series against the New York Rangers.

Kevin Hayes slipped the puck by goalie Marc-Andre Fleury 3:14 into overtime at Consol Energy Center, as the Rangers won, 2-1, to take a stifling 3-1 series lead back to Broadway.

Game 5 is 7 p.m. Friday at Madison Square Garden, where the stakes for the Penguins couldn’t be higher.

“We’re playing for our season now,” defenseman Rob Scuderi said. “The playoffs are about taking one thing very incrementally small at a time. Our process doesn’t change. We have to try and get one in New York and bring it home.”

That was the exact message of coach Mike Johnston.

He said the approach in a tight series is to find small ways to improve, maybe a faceoff, a matchup. Bring the information to the players. Then execute.

“We’re trying to get better each and every game. When you play a team so often you’ve got to pick up some little things in the game that can give you that advantage,” Johnston said.

“You’re always trying to look and see where as a coach you can do a better job and give some information to the players where we can get 3 percent better, 5 percent better for the next game.”

Captain Sidney Crosby said it’s pretty simple.

“You’ve got to leave it all out there,” Crosby said. “We’ll take some things from this game and make sure that, you know, we’re desperate. That’s really the only thing you can do. Be desperate and get it back here.”

Said center Maxim Lapierre: “It’s one game at a time. We’ve got to go there and win one. That’s it.”

Scuderi faced elimination at this point in a series in the American Hockey Legaue once. Taylor Chorney did, too.

The Penguins previousluy faced elimination so early when they were down, 0-3, heading into Game 4 in the Eastern Conference final against Boston in 2013. They were swept in that series.

“I think the key is to not look too far ahead. We know where we’re standing right now and it’s a tough hill to climb,” Chorney said. “All we can really do is focus on the next game and try to bring it back home for Game 6.”

Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist said he expects the Penguins best on Friday.

“Everything. It’s desperation mode for them and the key is to match that,” Lunqvist said. “You have to grab every opportunity you get to finish a series. You can’t just think you have more chance. You’ve got to go for it and match their desperation. It’s tough. Every game here has been one goal and it's not going to be easy. ”

Fleury said it will be there. “We’re against the rope here, but we’re not done,” Fleury said. “We’ll be back next game.”