NOT THE OUTCOME WE WERE HOPING FOR

The Pittsburgh Penguins squandered a 2-1 second-period lead en route to a tough 4-3 loss in Montreal on Monday night. The Pens' loss sets up a win-or-go-home Game Seven on Wednesday night in Pittsburgh, the first such Game Seven in the city since Florida beat the Penguins on June 1, 1996, sending the Panthers and their rat-throwing fans to the Stanley Cup as a result. A Penguin win this time around would boost them into the Eastern Conference Finals for the third consecutive year; a loss would end their title defense and also would be the final game ever played in Mellon Arena. The stakes, as they say, could not be higher.

But I'm getting ahead of myself in discussing Game Seven, because we first have to revisit Monday's loss, an extremely disappointing contest played in front of 21,273 rabid Montreal fans. I'll cut right to the chase: there was some good news and some bad news for the Flightless Birds. I'll start with the good news: Sidney Crosby finally scored a goal in the series, Kris Letang netted his fifth of the postseason, and the Penguins did battle back to score a third goal late in the final period on a Bill Guerin deflection. 

Unfortunately, the bad news came in greater numbers on this night for the Pens. The defense, for the most part, was pretty bad in front of Marc-Andre Fleury, who himself was mediocre at best. Evgeni Malkin came back to Earth from a great Game Five, the power play hit only once on five attempts, and the Penguins allowed the insane Montreal crowd to become a huge part of the game. 

Combine that with the fact that the Habs were playing without Hal Gill and Andrei Markov, the Penguins were not getting the bounces, and Pittsburgh's failure to display the same level of desperation as Montreal, and it's not too hard to see how we've reached a Game Seven. It's no surprise to me - I thought all along that this one was going seven, regardless of the fact that the Pens were/are the favorites and the fact that Montreal beat a team that's become known as a playoff underachiever. But beating the #1 seed is beating the #1 seed, and if Montreal could pull that off, any other opponent was fair game. To boot, they had (and still have) an outstanding goalie in Jaroslav Halak, and Mike Cammalleri has now scored five goals in each series. Seeing this series extended to a seventh game should not raise many eyebrows.

The Pens will have to come out with their collective hair on fire on Wednesday night, to get the crowd even more involved in the game (although I have a feeling the fans will surely be bringing their A-game). Dan Bylsma and Co. will have some work between now and then to tweak strategies, matchups, and lineups, but if the Pens can't do better than they did on Monday night, it will be a heck of a sad night in the Steel City. The end of the Penguins' title defense and hockey in Mellon Arena in one night might be too much to handle. Obviously, the answer is easy for these potential problems: the Pens just have to go out and win the game.

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IT'S A THREE-GAME SERIES

The Pittsburgh Penguins blew a 2-1 lead that they held for 36 minutes, self-combusting over a 1:33 span in the third period in dropping a 3-2 decision to the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday night.

The Pens were all over the Habs early, quickly digging out of an early 1-0 hole with first-period goals from Max Talbot and Chris Kunitz, the first for each in this series. After two periods, Pittsburgh had a ridiculous 25-9 edge in shots, and a 3-1 series lead looked like a distinct possibility that was 20 minutes away. But things went sideways in the third period, when Maxim Lapierre scored a wraparound goal at the 2:07 mark and a Brian Gionta pass went off Kris Letang's skate and past Marc-Andre Fleury a little more than a minute and a half later. The Canadiens snagged a 3-2 lead that they would not surrender the rest of the game, and the series now shortens to a three-game variety.

The Penguins threw everything they had at Jaroslav Halak, but the tough Canadiens goalie responded by stopping each of the 20 shots he saw over the last two periods for the game's first-star honors. In all, the Montreal netminder made 33 stops, including more than a few of the brilliant variety. 

Conversely, Marc-Andre Fleury gave up an admittedly soft goal to start the game, one I'm sure he'd love to have back, and a deflection off a teammate's skate to account for two of the three goals allowed. But as I state all too often, you win as a team, you lose as a team. Whether Fleury is brilliant or average from game to game, the fact remains that Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin have combined for just one goal in this series, a number that simply boggles the mind. The Pens are facing an opponent playing with house money and absolutely nothing to lose, mostly because no one expected them to get out of the first round. I think the Penguins will still win the series, but it's certainly going to take everything they've got.

As far as the injured Flightless Birds, Jordan Staal somehow ended up in the lineup and was a -1 with two shots on goal. Bill Guerin and Mike Rupp were both scratched due to injuries, a fact that no doubt had an effect on the lack of traffic in front of the Montreal net. But I strongly hesitate to blame this loss in any way on the guys who were banged up or absent from the lineup. This win was in the palm of the Penguins' hands, and they let it slip away. As a result, a rejuvenated Montreal team will come calling to Mellon Arena on Saturday night in a critical Game Five, and how the Penguins will respond could very well define the way this series will conclude.

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