By Alan Robinson
Associated PressPITTSBURGH ó The Detroit Red Wings skated into Pittsburgh for this very game last year, outplayed the Penguins in their building and, in the final indignity, paraded with the Stanley Cup on the same ice where Mario Lemieux once played.
Think Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin and Marc-Andre Fleury don’t remember the emptiness and frustration they felt after that Stanley Cup finals Game 6? After more than 100 games played over more than eight grueling months, the season ends and the other team celebrates before your friends, family and fans?
“We don’t want that image in our heads again,” Penguins forward Max Talbot said Monday.
If the Red Wings win this Game 6 tonight, a year and five days after winning their last one there, it will be more than an image to the Penguins. It will be an instant replay.
Not since Montreal clinched in Boston in 1977 and 1978 has a team won the Stanley Cup in the same opponent’s building two seasons in a row, but the Red Wings will gladly take another clincher in Pittsburgh if it means avoiding an ever-dangerous Game 7.
“It’s obviously a special night when you know you have a chance to win the Cup in one single hockey game,” goalie Chris Osgood.
The Penguins have heard for two days how they lost the Stanley Cup with a more-than-miserable 5-0 setback in Game 5 on Saturday. Even if they win Game 6 before an all-in-white home crowd, they must go back to Detroit and inhospitable Joe Louis Arena, where they have been outscored 10-2 while losing three games.