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Penguins need to wrap up series with Flyers tonight

By John Steigerwald for The 5 min read
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The ebb and flow of inevitability.

Remember how inevitable a Penguins win in the first round of the playoffs was when it was determined that their opponent would be the Philadelphia Flyers?

They were 4-0 against them and scored five goals every time in the regular season.

The Flyers’ goalies stink.

The Penguins had the best power play in the NHL and the Flyers had the second worst penalty kill.

Fans and media only had the number of games it would take to discuss. Most probably wanted to predict a sweep or Penguins in five. The unofficial consensus seemed to be five or six but that was because nobody wanted to be seen as too much of a homer.

Then the Penguins beat them 7-0 in Game 1.

The Flyers and their fans were ridiculed on all the talk shows. I heard two guys asking listeners to compare this Penguins team to the Steelers of the ’70s. The assumption being that the Penguins were on the way to their third consecutive Stanley Cup.

Flyers 5, Penguins 1 in Game 2 and a series win seemed a little less inevitable.

The way the Flyers came out flying in Game 3 took all the inevitability out of it until Sidney Crosby did his wraparound and the Penguins went on to win 5-1.

After Matt Murray shut them out, 5-0, in Game 4, the Penguins brought the inevitability back to Pittsburgh for Game 5, where you couldn’t find 12 people who thought there was going to be a Game 6.

Whoops.

Game 6 is at 3 p.m. today in Philadelphia and the inevitability is gone. The Flyers were the more desperate team Friday night, and the 7-0 loss in Game 1, and the 10 goals given up in Games 3 and 4 were a long, long time ago, and will have no bearing on what happens today.

You would think that, after seeing the Penguins involved in so many seven-game series over the years, people around here — especially in the media — would have learned that you really do have to take it one game at a time.

Do you think 10 percent of the hockey fans in Western Pennsylvania gave the Capitals a chance when they lost the first two games at home to Columbus?

You would rather be the Penguins with two games to lose, but home ice advantage means little, and it will actually be a disadvantage for them if it goes to Game 7.

All the pressure will be on the Penguins. The fans expectations were high before the 7-0 win in the opening game, and they were even higher when the Penguins had a chance to close it out Friday night. There will be more tension in the Paint Can than excitement and the Penguins will feel that tension but the Flyers won’t. It would probably be a good idea for the Penguins to win tonight.

Don’t you just love seven-game series?

-A couple of years ago I asked this question: If Mario Lemieux is a 100, what is Crosby? I think my answer was somewhere between 90 and 95 and most people seemed to think that was high, bordering on sacrilegious. After Crosby passed Lemieux for the team lead in playoff points Wednesday night, there was quite a bit of comparing going on and some credible people were ready to call it a tie or say that Crosby is better.

He’s not.

I think Lemieux is the most talented player to ever lace on a pair of skates and Crosby is at least in the top five all time if not top three. If it’s about stats, Lemieux blows him away, but Wayne Gretzky blows Lemieux away and I still believe Lemieux was a better player.

It’s impossible to make a clear distinction between players from different eras, and Lemieux and Gretzky played in an era when you couldn’t find a goalie who didn’t give up at least tree goals a game.

Crosby would benefit more from playing in Lemieux’s era and would be a 160-point scorer. Lemieux wouldn’t score 160 points today but he’d score 125 and win the scoring title.

If you base it on Stanley Cups, Crosby wins but it’s a team sport, so that can’t be the deciding factor.

Crosby is a better 200 foot player except for those times when Lemieux decided to play defense — like in the playoffs — when he was often the best defensive player on the ice.

Lemieux killed penalties and had a ton of shorthanded goals, including 13 in one season.

But Crosby will never be 6-4 and have the reach advantage that Lemieux had, and he probably won’t be able to equal the feat that sets Lemieux apart from every player in NHL history and maybe every player in every major sport’s history.

Are you aware of anybody in any other major team sport who took three and a half years off, came back at 35 and became the best player in the sport in the first minute of his first game back?

I don’t.

Could Crosby play next season, take three and a half years off and come back as the best player in the NHL?

Maybe.

Until he does, Lemieux doing it in 2000 will always be the tie breaker.

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