THE BOYS OF WINTER: I Don't Ever Want To Be In This Photograph Again ...

Those were the words of Pittsburgh Penguins' Captain Sidney Crosby, in a spot commerical the NHL prepared after last season's defeat in the Stanley Cup Final, where Crosby steps out of a still picture taken at the Pens' bench in the aftermath of the final game 6 buzzer.

Tonight, down 3-2 to the Detroit Red Wings for the 2nd straight season, Crosby and his teammates face another must win in the 2009 Stanley Cup championship round.

The alternative?

A re-take.

After another game 6 loss, in the same location.

And at the wicked hands of the same team.

Here's hoping that the Penguins don't host the Red Wings' Stanley Cup celebration for the second straight year because, frankly, I don't know that I can swallow that again.

A lot of thoughts are ruminating around the noggin this morning, not the least of which is how the Penguins are going to step up and bounce back in game 6 tonight at the venerable Igloo to force a 7th game in this series.

To do that, it's going to be up to the Captain to lead the way and make sure there isn't another one of those photographs.

Crosby simply needs to have the best game of his career tonight. There's no sugarcoating it. I'd say that whether or not he was a general non-factor for most of this series, which is exactly what he has been. But the fact that he hasn't been able to contribute thusfar like he can -- and like the Penguins need him to -- exacerbates the urgency for him.

His superstar cohort, Evgeni Malkin, was the one that was absent for much of the Stanley Cup Final this year. You can't say that about #71 this season. He's made his presence known in just about every game, while Crosby has been MIA in the way Geno was in 2008.

I'm not trying to be critical of Sid. As I have said earlier in this series, Detroit coach Mike Babcock has basically assigned three players -- including 2 of the best on his team and in this game, Henrik Zetterberg and Nicklas Lidstrom (and Brian Rafalski) -- to shut Crosby down. They've done that pretty well, but at the expense of contributing offensively, which obviously hurts Detroit's cause. And that speaks volumes to the type of threat Crosby is.

But in games like this, when all the chips are down, the best players find a way. Crosby has to channel his emotion, his will to win, and his fear of being in that photograph again onto the ice tonight into goals and points for his club.

The other guy the Penguins desperately need to perform at the top of his game for as long as this series continues is their goaltender.

Joe Starkey of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review wrote about this yesterday. He said that Fleury wasn't the reason the Penguins are down 3-2 to Detroit at this point. He said that Fleury wasn't the problem. But he then said that Fleury could be the reason why they win. He said Fleury could be part of the solution.

I agree in part with Joe. He definitely can be part of the solution. He CAN be the reason why they win the Stanley Cup.

But I'm not sure he's completely without fault in putting the Penguins in the position they are currently in.

Make no mistake. Marc-Andre Fleury has had a good playoff so far -- obviously good enough to help get Pittsburgh to where they are -- but not a great one, and I say that without hesitation. Throughout the Penguins' entire playoff run, which spans 23 games now, I can think of 4 contests in which I believe Fleury was truly the difference: Games 2 and 4 against the Philadelphia Flyers, and games 1 and 4 against the Carolina Hurricanes.

That's not good enough. The playoffs are the time when goaltenders need to steal games. Fleury hasn't done that nearly enough this post-season, and his statistics reflect as much. He certainly hasn't played at the level of netminding that Tom Barrasso gave Pittsburgh the last time they won Stanley Cups in 1991 and 1992. Barrasso could easily have won the Conn Smythe Trophy both of those seasons.

Even if the Penguins win the Cup, Fleury isn't Conn Smythe worthy.

But he can validate his status in the league as a Cup Winner -- a la Cam Ward in Carolina -- with 2 more victories. I mean, let's face it. If Fleury wants to be recognized as one of the top goaltenders in the National Hockey League, this is the time to show it. This is the time to step up and slam the door. He's certainly capable of it. He CAN steal games. But the best playoff goalies in the history of this game, from Patrick Roy on down the line, do it when it matters most.

There are few greater opportunities to show that than the one facing Fleury right now.

Like Crosby, Fleury has to have his best game of the season tonight.

From a coaching standpoint, there was some talk circulating yesterday that coach Dan Bylsma might make a few lineup changes. Mainly, this speculation surrounded whether RW Petr Sykora might get back in the lineup in place of either RW Miro Satan or C Craig Adams, both of which haven't really had any meaningful impact in this Stanley Cup Final so far.

There also was an interesting rotation at times among the Penguins' defense pairings at practice yesterday. Hal Gill took some turns out of the top-6 rotation paired with Alex Goligoski. Philippe Boucher took his place and skated with Mark Eaton, while Rob Scuderi skated with Kris Letang.

Personally, I doubt there will be any changes on the backline. Bylsma might put Sykora in the lineup, but I'm not sure why. After this much time off, it's hard to imagine him being that effective. At this point, whether you play him or play Satan, it's probably a wash. Maybe you try it just for a different look, but otherwise, you can't expect any real impact there.

If there's one tactical change I might make if I were Bylsma, it would be to double shift Crosby and Malkin more often -- like he did when he dressed seven defenseman all of the last round and in games 1 and 2 of this series.

You don't have to actually dress 7 defenseman to do that. If you want to double shift them, you can still do that by dressing 12 forwards. It just means that you staple Pascal Dupuis or Adams to the bench more often. With 2 days between games and the little extra rest that comes with that, not to mention with what's at stake, there's no reason not to give Sid and Geno extra ice time.

At home, it will be easier to try and get Crosby away from Zetterberg -- who will probably have Pavel Datsyuk on his wing again tonight -- but if you double shift him or Malkin, you're at least increasing the chances of having them on the ice opposite other Red Wing players, regardless of how much Detroit coach Mike Babcock tries to match the lines. In other words, it might allow Bylsma to get the matchups he wants without trying to force them all game.

One other storyline being thrust back into the spotlight somewhat tonight is the fact that The Traitor is on the verge of validating his decision to abandon his Penguin teammates in the off-season to play for the enemy because he thought they'd have a better chance of winning the Cup.

The thought of that alone is enough to make me vomit.

Violently.

35 million times -- once for each dollar he turned down from Pittsburgh to sign a deal worth less money to play for the hated Red Wings.

Marion Hossa's words in the off-season stung me and Penguin fans all over the world. The last thing any of us really want to face is the possibility that Hossa was right.

And let's be frank --- I don't want to see him carry that Cup at all. Not tonight. Not Friday night. While the Penguins' season is on the line tonight, it will be on the line all the same in a game 7 if they prevail this evening. Which means that all of the players under the gun for the Penguins -- including some I haven't mentioned, like key support players Bill Guerin, Chris Kunitz and Ruslan Fedotenko -- have to be at their best for 2 straight games.

That's what it's going to take.

There are, at most, 2 games left in the season.

The Penguins must win both.

I believe.

Which leads me to a MoJo story. Nothing new for some Penguin fans, really, but something I don't think I've ever mentioned in this space.

Back in February, right around the time Dan Bylsma was hired and the Penguins turned around their game this year, McDonalds started a silly commerical for their Filet-O-Fish sandwich, with 2 guys who didn't say a word in the entire commerical and a catchy jingle sung by a mounted fish on the wall.

Because that commercial got a lot of play during Penguin games -- and because it started when it did -- many Penguin fans, myself included, started to attach some MoJo to it and how the Penguins were playing. I have it reflected in a simple picture, that I'll post here and close with: