For Predators, no time to relax
History says Penguins don’t stay down for long
The biggest mistake a Nashville Predators fan could make right now, other than buying a counterfeit ticket for Sunday’s Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final, is expecting Thursday’s Game 5 to be a continuation of the Predators’ momentum.
There’s no such thing in a series with so much at stake on every shift. There’s no such thing against this opponent. The Predators and Pittsburgh Penguins are tied 2-2, and that’s it. Game 5 at Pittsburgh’s PPG Paints Arena is pivotal. Nashville outscoring Pittsburgh by a combined 9-2 in Games 3 and 4 is incidental.
“You can’t forget, regardless of what happens in a game or throughout a series, they’re the Cup champions,” Predators defenseman P.K. Subban said of the Penguins. And they’re within two wins of a repeat because they can look average for stretches and nullify those stretches with championship moments.
The Penguins were in trouble in the second round, it appeared, handled by the Washington Capitals in Games 5 and 6 to set up a
Game 7 in Washington. Pittsburgh won. Then the Ottawa Senators led the Eastern Conference finals 2-1 and pushed the Penguins all the way to a heartthumping double overtime of Game 7. Pittsburgh won.
This is why Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said after the Predators’ 4-1 win Monday at ear-assaulting Bridgestone Arena in Nashville: “I think we’ve got to stay with it here. We believe in this group that we have. They’re a resilient bunch. They’re a resourceful bunch. They understand how to win.”
Just as there was no cause for Predators panic after the first two games, which saw the Penguins win by a combined score of 9-4, the events of two stirring nights in Nashville won’t spill into the next big night in Pittsburgh. Certainly, the pressure is back on the Penguins after letting a 2-0 series lead slip, but they know pressure well.
And if you go back and watch Game 4 again, they actually did a lot that night to put it all back on the Predators. That was Pittsburgh’s best game of the series. The Penguins sustained their presence in Nashville’s end better than they had in the first three games, and they got free for several looks of the highest quality.
“It was the first game in the series that we out-chanced them,” Sullivan said Wednesday.
Pekka Rinne simply wouldn’t let them win. The Nashville goaltender seemed to draw positive energy from the overwhelming support he got from Predators fans, bouncing back from Pittsburgh and his worst two games of the playoffs. Or maybe he just returned to normal after a couple of nights of bad puck luck.
Whatever it was, Rinne packed a seven-game series’ worth of highlight-reel plays into Monday evening. Pittsburgh’s Matt Mur- ray was under siege for a second consecutive game, and by the end of the night, Sullivan was being asked about the possibility of a goaltending change — as Nashville’s Peter Laviolette was between Games 2 and 3.
Sullivan shouldn’t make that switch, and I doubt he will. And, as usual, the better of those two players Thursday night probably will decide which team wins. That does not mean all the other players on both sides are inconsequential.
Any of them could decide this thing, maybe with a perfectly placed shot. Or by diving to block a shot, as Subban did late in Game 4 — taking a hard puck to his left leg that might still be stinging Thursday night.
It could be an amazing pass, like the one Predators captain Mike Fisher made to set up Viktor Arvidsson for a goal Monday. It could be a disastrous turnover. “The details at this point of the season are so important, and everybody seems to be paying attention to those details,” Subban said. “Now, it’s almost like the first four games are a wash. They don’t even matter now. It’s bestof-three, and at the end of the day we’ve got to elevate our game.”
Best-of-three, first to win two games skates away with the Stanley Cup. Game 6 on Sunday at Bridgestone will either be an opportunity for the Predators to win it in front of their fans or their first game of this postseason facing elimination. Game 7 would be Wednesday in Pittsburgh.
The NHL season is more than eight months and 1,300 games long, and it’s down to one last, fascinating week.
“I’ll whittle it down even more basic,” Predators forward Austin Watson said. “Game 5. That’s our focus.”
“It’s best-of-three, and at the end of the day we’ve got to elevate our game.” The Predators’ P.K. Subban, referring to the Stanley Cup Final being tied 2-2