Tampa Bay Lightning at Pittsburgh Penguins Game 7 preview
TV: NBC Sports Network (postgame on FOX Sports Sun)
TIME: 8 p.m. ET
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Sidney Crosby is in no mood to get caught up in his own personal narrative, the one eager to attach whatever happens to the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals on Thursday against Tampa Bay to the superstar's legacy.
Forget that Crosby has the game-winning goal in each of Pittsburgh's victories in its entertaining back-and-forth with the resilient Lightning. Forget that he hasn't been on the winning side of a post-series handshake line this deep into the playoffs since his glorious night in Detroit seven years ago, which ended with him hoisting the Penguins' third Stanley Cup.
Yes, he's playing well. Yes, his dazzling, imminently GIF-able sprint through the Tampa Bay zone late in the second period of Game 6 added another signature moment to a career full of them. Yet lifting Pittsburgh back to the Cup final for the first time since 2009 does not rely solely on him so much as the collective effort of all 20 guys in his team's retro black and Vegas gold uniforms.
Depth has carried the Penguins this far. Crosby insists Game 7 will be about the team, not him.
"You give yourself the best chance of winning by keeping it simple and not putting too much emphasis on kind of the story line around it," Crosby said.
Even if it's easy to get lost in those story lines. The Lightning are on the verge of a second straight berth in the final despite playing the entire postseason without captain Steven Stamkos and losing Vezina Trophy finalist Ben Bishop in the first period of the conference finals when he twisted his left leg awkwardly while scrambling to get into position.
Yet Tampa Bay has stuck around, ceding the ice to the Penguins for significant stretches but using their speed to counterattack brilliantly while relying on 21-year-old goaltender Andrei Vasilevski. The Lightning are hardly intimidated by having to go on the road in a series decider. They did it a year ago in the Eastern final against New York, beating the Rangers 2-0 in Madison Square Garden.
"You've got to go back to a tough environment, just like the Garden was last year," Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. "And you've got to have your A-game."
The Lightning hoped to avoid revisiting this spot. They could have closed out Pittsburgh at home but fell behind by three goals and didn't recover, fitting for a series that appears to be a coin flip as a whole but not so much night to night. The team that's scored first is 5-1 and there's only been a single lead change in 18-plus periods spread out over nearly two weeks: Tyler Johnson's deflection in overtime that gave Tampa Bay Game 5.
"You always want to play with the lead, and always the first goal is big," said Lightning defenseman Anton Stralman, who is 7-0 in Game 7s. "But, again, we were down 2-0 in Game 5 and came back from that. So it's not cut in stone, the outcome of the game, no matter if you're down a goal or two."
Maybe, but it'd be cutting it pretty close. Tampa Bay's rally in Game 5 was Pittsburgh's first loss when leading after two periods all year. The Penguins responded by going back to rookie goaltender Matt Murray -- who turned 22 on Wednesday -- and putting together perhaps their finest hockey of the postseason. Their stars played like stars while Murray performed like a guy a decade older with his name already etched on the Cup a few times.
The Penguins will need to rely on Murray's precocious maturity if it wants to buck a curious trend that started well before Murray was born. Pittsburgh hasn't won a Game 7 on home ice since Mario Lemieux and company beat New Jersey in the opening round of the 1991 playoffs to escape from a 3-2 series deficit and propel the Penguins to their first championship. The Penguins have dropped five straight winner-take-all matchups since then, including a loss to Tampa Bay in the first round in 2011, a series Pittsburgh played without either Crosby or Evgeni Malkin, who sat out with injuries.
They're healthy now and showing extended flashes of the form that seemed to have the Penguins on the brink of a dynasty when they toppled Detroit. And the Lightning, who are 5-1 in Game 7s, are hardly comfortable but hardly intimidated as they play on the road.
"I think it's a roller coaster," Cooper said. "But Game 7 is Game 7. There's no two better words than that."
