Penguins persevere — again
Pushed to double overtime in Game 7, champs stay alive.
P I T T S B U R G H — S i d n e y Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Chris Kunitz stood shoulder to shoulder at center ice as midnight approached, crowd on its feet, Prince of Wales Trophy in hand. Another shot at the Stanley Cup in the offing.
On the surface, it could have been a scene ripped from 2008 when the longtime Pittsburgh Penguins teammates earned their first crack at a championship together, the one that was supposed to be the launching pad for a dynasty.
A closer look at the weary, grateful smiles told a different story.
This team has learned over the last decade that nothing can be taken for granted. Not their individual greatness or postseason success, even for one of the NHL’s marquee franchises. Not the cohesion it takes to survive the crucible of the most draining championship chase in professional sports or the mental toughness (along with a dash of luck) needed to stay on top once you get there.
So Crosby paused in the giddy aftermath of Pittsburgh’s 3-2 double - overtime victory over Ottawa in Game 7 of the helter-skelter Eastern Conference finals to do something the two-time Hart Trophy winner almost never does. He took stock of the moment, aware of how fleeting they can be.
“Every series you look at, the margin for error is so slim,” Crosby said. “We’ve just continued to find ways a n d d i f f e re n t g uys h ave s t e pp e d u p. We t r u s t i n that and we believe in that and whoever has come in the lineup has done a great job. That builds confidence. We’ve done it different ways, which is probably our biggest strength.”
Credit coach Mike Sullivan’s ever-prescient tinkering with the lineups, including his decision to throw Kunitz back into the fray with Crosby as Game 7 wore on, an experiment that ended with Crosby feeding Kunitz for the winner 5:09 into the second overtime.
Credit goaltender Matt Murray, thrust back into the lineup when Marc-Andre Fleury’s hot play that helped carry the Penguins through the opening t wo rounds finally cooled.
“I believe that the resolve and the resilience of this team is the strength of this team,” Sullivan said.
Both were on full display in Game 7.
Kunitz, who missed the first-round series against Columbus with an injury, r e t u r n e d t o s e e h i mse l f bumped from the first line to the fourth, scored his first t wo goals of the playoffs. Conor Sheary, a blurring revelation last spring who suddenly found himself a healthy scratch in Games 5 and 6, returned to set up Kunitz’s first goal.
Justin Schultz, who has assumed the minute-hogging, puck-moving defenseman role held by the injured Kris Letang, returned from his own health scare and scored a go-ahead goal in the third period.
“This year it’s been back and forth, it’s been tough,” Kunitz said. “We’ve had great individual performances. We had great goaltending. It’s something every night.”