Pens Deliver Perfect Script: Game 7

PITTSBURGH -- What a shame hockey didn't own this night. Americans from Florida to California should have been glued to the extraordinary image of Marc-Andre Fleury doing somersaults in front of the net to save the Penguins' season, of Rob Scuderi using the edge of his skate to stop what surely would have been a dagger to the gut, of scruffy-faced athletes pushing the sport to a transcendent, desperate finish.

When it was over, when the last frantic second expired on Pittsburgh's 2-1 Game 6 win over the Detroit Red Wings in the Stanley Cup finals, the 17,132 lucky souls who witnessed this gem in person managed to dislodge their hearts from their throats and turn The Igloo into something that sounded pretty close to a rapturous revival. It was tough to decide where they should genuflect first.

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At Fleury, the goaltender who was pulled from Game 5 after he and the Pittsburgh Penguins were just awful in Detroit, giving up five goals and looking as if they couldn't wait to break out the golf clubs? Fleury did everything Tuesday night but score -- third-line teammates Jordan Staal and Tyler Kennedy handled that part for the Penguins -- and the goalie's brilliant act deep in the third period, against a maddening Red Wing rush, will someday be cemented in Steel City sporting lore.

Or how about Scuderi, just one of the Pittsburgh defensemen happy to use skates, body parts, whatever it took to make sure Detroit didn't fashion a repeat celebration? Scuderi's souvenirs from the game included a bloody gash above his eye, and a blade that ought to be bronzed.

And how can anyone ignore the two-thirds of the trilogy that gleams from the poster outside the new arena rising down the block? Fleury is one, but the other two, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, hadn't done much to hold up their ends of superstar status in these Finals until Tuesday night. Neither had a point but Crosby played on both ends with fire in his eyes, steam oozing from his pores. Malkin rediscovered his early-spring flair, though what really stood out was the fearless, joyful way he threw himself in front of the puck, as if he never wanted the fun to end.

It won't, at least for three more periods, as the Stanley Cup finals head back to Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, for Friday's Game 7.

The good news: the Los Angeles Lakers and Orlando Magic have scheduled only practices for Friday; presumably they will not be televised. The bad news: the NHL managed to trip over itself again by agreeing to air Game 6 against the NBA's Game 3 Tuesday night, basically assuring that hockey would be only seen by pockets of die-hards and viewers with broken remote controllers. This, after rushing to get the first two games of the Stanley Cup finals on NBC, to avoid conflicting with Conan O'Brien's first week as Tonight Show host.

But knocking NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is like jabbing a balloon with a pin; even 4-year-olds eventually tire of the simplicity. So let's instead take a page out of Crosby's playbook and focus not on disasters and what might have been, but on the positive delights of what's still to come.


There will be a Game 7. The best thing in sports.

"We found a way to survive. That's what we had to do and we did it. Now it's anyone's game," Crosby was saying, once he finally extricated Detroit's pesky Henrik Zetterberg from his back. "Anything can happen in a Game 7."

Detroit is a Red Machine working on its second consecutive Stanley Cup and fifth in 12 seasons, a bona fide 21st century dynasty carved out of the Original Six. Loaded with talent and energy, speed and smarts, the Wings don't really have any stand-alone studs or preening prima donnas. Individuals come to Detroit and get lost within the team, which could at least partly explain the disappearance of Marian Hossa.

Isn't that why Hossa turned down piles of money from Pittsburgh during the offseason and bolted the Penguins for Detroit? So he could hoist the Cup, a sight he refused to watch this time last year on this very sheet of ice, when the Red Wings beat Hossa's team and celebrated in front of fans whose faces had turned as white as their shirts? Hossa is still without a goal in this series, and the next time he drives hard to the net might just be the first.

Pittsburgh is top heavy with young stars prepped to be the sport's premier faces, Sid the Kid and Geno, the Penguins' Id and Ego. Crosby, especially, still burns from the memory of the Red Wings parading Lord Stanley around Mellon Arena. The 5-0 Game 6 loss Saturday, and the uncharacteristic petulance it wrought, only pushed the weight deeper into his shoulders. He'd never admit it, but losing the Cup for a second straight year to the same team would be about as palatable as swallowing arsenic.

Mario Lemieux, selected in the entry draft by Pittsburgh 25 years ago Tuesday, gave a pregame speech to the Penguins, his presence providing a cooling balm to a club feeling the heat. But it was The Kid who pushed the home team into the zone, as the Penguins set the tone with an intense, frantic first period. They outshot the Wings, 12-3, and had the Igloo shaking with forechecks.

It was Detroit's Chris Osgood, perched atop the crease, who kept the Wings alive. It was Detroit's double mistakes, getting caught in a pinch and on a line change, that allowed Staal to finish off a two-on-one down the right wing for a 1-0 Penguin lead at :51 of the second. Kennedy, on another goal that required more sheer will than grace, put Pittsburgh up, 2-0, with less than six minutes into the third period.

But less than three minutes later, Kris Draper, an old hand at lugging around the Stanley Cup, pushed a rebound past Fleury, and it was pure coincidence that the Stanley Cup was undergoing a spit-shine in the arena bowels.

Could it happen again? The Igloo quickly melted into a fingernail-chewing bundle of nerves. Pittsburgh hadn't been whistled for a penalty all night but now it was called for two in the space of a few minutes. Conspiracy theorists scratched their heads. Didn't the NHL want a Game 7, with a national TV audience all its own?

The Penguins killed both penalties, and the goalie known as Flower and the defense that had fallen down one game earlier took over. With less than two minutes left, Detroit's Dan Cleary snared a pass on a breakaway, pulling Fleury out of the net, but he lunged forward and made another clutch stop with his left pad. The remaining minute was a whirl of Penguins dropping to their knees to block the puck and a furious scrum in front of the home net and bodies everywhere -- it was six on five, Osgood on the bench, but Pitt's determination made it seem like there were 20 men in black floating atop skates -- and then there was Fleury, stretching his body one way, his stick the other, and stopping the puck with a sliver of an inch, and then came Scuderi, sending away another attempt with his skate. Rookie coach Dan Bylsma must have been wondering if he should maybe change his pregame lucky burrito.

He's now 21-1 after devouring the same meal from the Qdoba Mexican Grille three blocks away from Mellon Arena. It's Chile pork BBQ, with a dollop of hot and mild salsa plus cheese. The rookie coach wasn't around last June, when the Red Wings partied hard at the Igloo. He's not averse to starting his own traditions, heartburn far more desirable than heartache.

"What a night," Bylsma said as he stood outside the Penguins' locker room, clutching his chest. "I wouldn't mind another one exactly like it." Lucky for the NHL, and a sporting audience that won't be forced to chose, we get one more.