Posted by Pierre LeBrun
PITTSBURGH -- The Penguins are 20 minutes from forcing a winner-take-all Game 7. And they deserve to be.
The Pens outshot the Wings 12-9 in the second period and are up 24-12 through 40, an unheard-of 2-1 ratio against a Detroit team that almost never gets outshot.
Pittsburgh should be up more than a goal, but Chris Osgood was fantastic again, turning away a number of point-blank chances to keep it close.
We got our first goal of the night 51 seconds into the middle period after Wings blueliner Brett Lebda got caught at the Pens blue line, which caused a two-on-one break. Jordan Staal popped in his own rebound, and Mellon Arena was alive. Any goal by the Staal line on this night is a major bonus given that, again on this shift, they were lined up against Henrik Zetterberg.
Moments later, Osgood -- outstanding again tonight -- pulled off a veteran savvy move. Teammate Johan Franzen had just crashed into the boards and looked a little woozy. Problem is, it was an icing call against Detroit, so Franzen had to stay on the ice. No problem, Osgood seemed to say, as he suddenly found a malfunction with his mask. The fans booed at the obvious delaying tactic, but it allowed Franzen a breather.
Both coaches really mixed up their forward lines in the second period. Wings coach Mike Babcock at times split up Pavel Datsyuk and Zetterberg, in part because I think he was trying to find a way to get Marian Hossa going and thought Datsyuk might do that. But Datsyuk and Zetterberg were back together late in the period.
Meanwhile, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin had a shift together near the end of the period, but couldn't take advantage of the favorable matchup against Valtteri Filppula. Instead, the Wings nearly scored on the very next shift when Zetterberg and Datsyuk went over the boards and were matched up with Ruslan Fedotenko, Max Talbot and Chris Kunitz -- a dream matchup for the Wings. Zetterberg danced around Hal Gill and rang one off the far post.
The Wings were coming alive late in the period. Scotty?
Scott Burnside: Well, Pierre, agreed, the Pens are playing as desperately as we expected they would. Thought, though, they hit a bit of a wall with about six minutes left in the second and made a handful of plays in their own zone that could have spelled trouble.
They were fortunate they didn't pay a steeper price in a period when the Wings had five straight shots on goal. Thought the final shift with Malkin setting up Fedotenko -- will he ever score again? -- then having a great chance himself was key to going into the second intermission with the right frame of mind. Should be a dynamic third period. Hard to imagine that the first goal of the game will stand up for a second straight time in this series, but we're going to find out.
ESPN.com Stanley Cup playoffs blog
