GAME SIX RECAP (Capitals 5, Penguins 4)

Nobody can say that they didn't get their money's worth, or that this has been less than compelling. I agree fully with Bruce Boudreau: If only this was for the Cup. After tonight's Game Seven is played and we can look at the series as a whole, it's pretty tough to imagine either the Conference Finals or the Cup Finals being less than a disappointment by comparison. And that's regardless of the outcome.

Through six games the Penguins have held a two-goal lead for a collective 19:43 (all coming during Game Four), and the Capitals held a two-goal lead for 4:07 during Game Two. The other 357:13 collective minutes of regulation and overtime have seen the teams tied or separated by a single goal. Remember the nineties and early 2000s, when any lead in the third period of a playoff game would pretty much guarantee both a win and a thoroughly boring remainder of the game? The Penguins and Capitals have rid us of that albatross. The team scoring first has lost five of the six games. No lead is safe. In Games Five and Six, the visiting team took a lead midway through the third period, only to have the home team tie up the game with 4:08 and 4:18 remaining, respectively. We've had three sudden death overtime games. Playoff hockey is a white-knuckle spectator sport as it is, with scoring coming from the most predictable and unpredictable places. By and large, the series has been six games on the edge of your seat.

Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin have played like superstars. In Game Six the Capitals scored five goals, but Ovechkin didn't score any of them. I don't think anybody expected Crosby, the assist man, to have as many goals in the series as Ovechkin, but there it is. And if you'd told me before the series that Mark Eaton and Kris Letang would each score more goals than Mike Green, I never would have believed it. So trends and expectations both succeed and fail.

Hal Gill was on the ice for both Capital goals within :27 in the second period, and actually got wedged behind Fleury and the net on Kozlov's magnificent sharp-angle goal that put the Capitals ahead for the first time in the game. It's at that point that we see the ill effects of all those Gonchar minutes being played by other defensemen. I expect Gonchar to return tonight and make a game effort of playing both power-play and even-strength minutes.

The teams have been ridiculously even, except at one place: goaltending. Thus far, Varlamov has outplayed Fleury. The only way the Penguins win tonight is if he outplays his counterpart.