Penguins come home down 3-2 against Red Wings again, hoping for a different result

Penguins in another 3-2 deficit against Red Wings

PITTSBURGH — The series score is the same, so is the opponent and the location, yet this Game 6 has a distinctly different feel to the desperate Pittsburgh Penguins.

Back home after a 5-0 drubbing in Detroit on Saturday, the Penguins face the prospect Tuesday night of watching the Detroit Red Wings skate around with the Stanley Cup at their home rink for the second straight year.

“All we know is it’s 3-2 for them,” Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury said after Monday’s practice. “It doesn’t matter if we lost 2-1 or 5-0. All that matters is it’s 3-2, and we’ve got to focus on the next one no matter what it is. We’re just going to try to play our game, and we should be all right.

“I really believe it’s not over. I really look for that Game 7, but at the same time we’ve got to be ready to just play the game and not worry about it.”

Pittsburgh trailed the Red Wings 3-2 in the finals in 2008, but the Penguins were coming off an emotional triple overtime victory in Detroit that made Game 6 necessary.

Now they are trying to shake off a rout that ended a two-game winning streak built at home.

“Mentally, I think we’re in a different situation,” forward Max Talbot said. “Last year it was 3-1. We tried to battle back and it felt so hard to come back and win three games in a row. This year it was 2-2 and we play good at home.

“We’re coming back for a Game 6 and the guys are confident. We’re looser. We’re ready to go. We know it won’t be easy, but it’s the biggest game of our career and we definitely don’t want to have the same feeling as last year.”

The Penguins will be facing elimination for the second time in these playoffs. They blew out the Washington Capitals on the road in Game 7 of the second round after overcoming a 2-0 series deficit and then a home loss in Game 6.

“This year’s series there is a higher confidence,” Penguins captain Sidney Crosby said of the Red Wings matchup. “We’ve seen a lot better results with the way we’ve played. We’ll draw on that experience — more so the results when we’ve played our game and the success we’ve had with it. We’ll take that more from this series than we would last year’s.”

Topping the Red Wings with the Stanley Cup in the house poses a much greater task. Detroit is playoff-tested and adept in sealing the deal. The Red Wings are 3-1 this year in games they could eliminate opponents.

They had won 13 straight Game 6s in which they had the chance to end a series and advance before the Anaheim Ducks stayed alive in this year’s second round. The Red Wings came home and finished them off in seven games.

“Last year we were riding high,” defenseman Hal Gill said. “Right now we’re coming in and we have a job to do. We have to hold serve right now. It’s going to be a big game and we have to be ready for it.

“Last year we were pretty excited that we got to this point, and we wanted to go out there and get another one. Now we feel like we’re entitled it. We should go out and take it.”

If they do, Game 7 will be in Detroit on Friday night. And if trends mean anything, the odds are in the Penguins’ favor. The home team has won each of the first five games in the series — the third time that has happened in the finals since 1978.

“I don’t think we didn’t have their attention before, and now they need a 5-0 loss to get the attention,” said Penguins coach Dan Bylsma. “We’re in a different situation than we were last year. Guys in that room have felt what it’s like to lose in a final and have that with them and understand that. We now fully understand where we’re at.”