Playing in the second game on back-to-back nights in this crucial game 5 of their Eastern Conference Quarterfinal against the Washington Capitals, the last thing the Penguins needed was to have to play overtime.
The Penguins were fatigued and on the road, and had given up a late third period lead.
It didn't look good for them.
Fortunately, Evgeni Malkin saw to it that the 4th frame was short.
Malkin scored a goal about 3 and 1/2 minutes into extra time last night to give the Penguins a 4-3 overtime win and a 3 games to 2 lead in this best of seven series.
Ironically enough, the tally was a power play marker, and was made without the services of Pens' star defenseman and man-advantage specialist Sergei Gonchar, who missed the game after the cheap-shot knee-on-knee hit he took from Washington LW Alexander Ovechkin in game 4.
Pittsburgh can close out the series with 4 straight wins and send the Capitals home for the season on Monday in game 6 at Mellon Arena.
Like the first two games of this series in Washington, last night's contest had a lot of back and forth, and was kept close by the efforts of villian #1 in Pittsburgh, Ovechkin.
But unlike those games, the Penguins got a strong game from Malkin and key performances from their support players.
And, of course, a victory.
After an intense but scoreless first period, Jordan Staal staked the Penguins to a 1-0 lead in the 2nd period on his first goal of the playoffs, taking a quick pass that RW Miroslav Satan gave him down low in the Washington end and one-timing it past Caps' netminder Simeon Varlamov on the far side.
That could have been a bad omen for Pittsburgh, since the team that had scored first had gone on to lose each of the first four games of this series.
While Malkin changed that storyline with his OT winner, the Penguins played the part early, doing exactly what they did in games 1 and 2 by allowing a goal by Washington right on the heels of their tally.
This time, Ovechkin got it, about 1 minute after Staal's goal, when he skated down the near wing one-on-one against Pittsburgh defenseman Brooks Orpik and pulled up. For some reason, Orpik continued to back off and gave Ovechkin just enough time to rip a wicked 45 foot wrister top corner past Penguins' goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury.
The Penguins had maintained good gap control on Ovechkin in games 3 and 4, but Orpik just lost himself for a second or two there, and it cost Pittsburgh.
Later in the 2nd period, the Penguins took an obvious -- and foolish -- too many men on the ice penalty, and the Capitals made them pay by scoring about 15 seconds into the man-advantage when Nicklas Backstrom worked a give-and-go in the corner and finished with another top corner wrister over Fleury to give the Caps' the lead.
At this point in the game, each team had stretches of good play, although the Penguins weren't quite as dominant as they had been in games 3 and 4.
That changed for the first 10 minutes of the 3rd period, though. Pittsburgh owned that part of the game and it paid off for them on the scoreboard.
First, Malkin made a sweet between-the-legs dish pass back to LW Ruslan Fedotenko on a 3-on-2 rush, and the Russian Tank drilled his own top-corner wrister over Varlamov from about 35 feet to tie the score.
It was Fedotenko's third straight game with a goal in this series, and his 4th of the playoffs. He had 10 shots in game 5 and another real strong game for Pittsburgh.
Minutes later, the Penguins' 3rd line -- which easily played its best game in this series -- contributed again, this time with LW Matt Cooke depositing a 3rd chance opportunity past Varlamov on the backhand to give the Penguins a lead and stun the Red-clad Verizon Center crowd.
That lead looked like it might hold up for the Penguins, but that changed when more ghosts of games 1 and 2 resurfaced for Pittsburgh.
Just like several goals in those games, the Penguins had a defensive lapse which permitted the Capitals to get back into it.
Washington broke into the Pens' zone 3-on-3 with about 5 minutes to go. Penguins' center Sidney Crosby broke towards the Capitals' puck carrier, defenseman Mike Green, on the near boards just for a moment, even though he was already being covered by defenseman Rob Scuderi. That gave Green just enough time to slide the puck to Backstrom and create a quick 2-on-1 around the net againt the Penguins' other defender, Hal Gill.
Backstrom slid a quick pass on the RW to Ovechkin who made no mistake wristing it by Fleury in a blur to tie the score and revive the crowd.
That, of course, only set the stage for the OT and Malkin's heroics.
Malkin's first strong play in the extra frame was taking a lead pass and barreling into the Caps' zone just enough to get a step on the Washington "D" and force Milan Jurcina to haul him down and take a penalty.
Then, as the penalty was expiring, Malkin again had the jets going, blowing by Capitals' center and 39-year old Sergei Federov along the far boards at the Washington blueline and almost creating a 2-on-1 off the rush with Crosby.
Caps' defenseman Tom Poti was trailing the play and just as Malkin went to backhand a pass across the ice to give Crosby a chance, Poti dove headfirst to break up the play.
Fortunately, for the Penguins, that is.
While Malkin's effort looked like a seeing-eye pass to Crosby, it ended up being a seeing-eye shot for a goal when it went off Poti's stick and through a stunned Varlamov's legs to give the Penguins' the victory.
With that, the Penguins are left to enjoy their 3rd straight victory in this series, and a chance to finish off the Caps' at home, while Washington is left to ponder how the Penguins continue to dominate them in postseason overtimes, getting another goal off of one of their own players in extra time.
The Penguins are now 8-0 all time in game 5's against Washington.
How will the Caps' psyche be in game 6? Well, only time will tell. But it surely won't be easy to put this defeat behind them:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/09/AR2009050902892.html
The Penguins, for their part, have to demonstrate their greatest killer instinct yet and finish off the Capitals' at home Monday. They didn't do that in game 5 on their home ice in round 1 against the Philadelphia Flyers and it made for an unnecessary -- and dangerous -- additional game in their opponent's building (even though they won it).
If that happens again this time, they're looking at a game 7 away from home, and that's something they should look to avoid, if possible. Again, not because they couldn't win it. They are, by far, playing a lot better in this series than they did against the Flyers. But because they want to step on Washington's collective throats when they are down.
If the Penguins keep doing what they're doing, there's a good chance they'll do just that. They threw 42 more shots on Varlamov last night and are now getting contributions from up and down their lineup.
One more win and it's on to the Eastern Conference Final for the second straight season.
More Monday.
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