GAME THREE RECAP (Penguins 4, Red Wings 2)

Really, here's the best and truest compliment anyone could give the Red Wings: the Penguins had six skaters in the offensive zone for twenty-one seconds during Game Three, and not only didn't the Penguins score, but nobody noticed. The post-game buzz was that the crowd of 17,000 partisans kept quiet in complicity. I think that's unlikely. I think the Red Wings, with five skaters, are just so positionally sound in the defensive zone that they can simultaneously cover down low, the slot and the circles and make six opposing skaters look like five.

But if you can get the Wings to four skaters, it's a different story, and it has been all playoffs long. They're not great on the penalty kill. Whether it's just gap breakdown or the loss of Kris Draper or the hobbling of Pavel Datsyuk, I don't know, but last night they spent ninety short-handed seconds in their own zone without clearing the puck a single time, and the end result was Sergei Gonchar's game-winning goal. The Wings missed a few clearing opportunities and lost a few battles for the puck, which are uncharacteristic for them. At the same time the Wings have been slumping while short-handed, the Penguins' power play might finally be rounding into shape after months and months of underachievement. It might not matter much if Games Four to the end of the series are whistle-swallowers, but if we see more than three power-play opportunities for the Penguins from here on out, it could well be the difference in the series. We know the achilles heel for both teams: the Penguins can't afford to ice the puck late in shifts, and the Wings can't afford to be short-handed.

I really hope that someday I'll get to see Max Talbot lift the Stanley Cup. Sooner rather than later, yes. It's just tough to imagine anyone enjoying it more than he would. Talbot's such a great team guy, and it's no secret that he makes the team go in ways that nobody else can. He's got six goals in the playoffs, which is a modest sum, but his fingerprints are all over the team's playoff success, starting with his kick-start to the team in Game Six of the Philly series, continuing with his fluttering backbreaker goal against Carolina in Game Four and into last night's two-goal performace. Talbot was already a dirty word in Detroit after last year's tying goal in Game Five with 33.5 seconds to go, which led to a Stanley Cup celebration being taken away from the home crowd at Joe Louis Arena, and he's leaving his mark on this series. The Penguins have a personnel problem; they're too deep at center and too shallow at wing. Talbot's very good at everything-- very good speed, shot, defense, forecheck and penalty-kill-- but he's probably not superlatively great at anything. He's too good and valuable to be getting the scraps of fourth-line ice time, though, so when it became clear that Petr Sykora wasn't going to snap out his slump, Talbot's been consistently skating right wing on Malkin's line. He's not enough of a natural finisher to play there in an ideal hockey universe. Through the first twenty playoff games, he's left a couple of goals on the ice rather than in the net, though that statement applies to at least half the Penguins in the Finals. I know the Penguins are getting a lot of intangibles out of Chris Kunitz and the Staal-Kennedy-Cooke line, but they need to generate some tangibles, too. Figuring that Crosby would draw heavy Zetterberg/Lidstrom duty and the Malkin line would draw the remainder of the Lidstrom minutes and the Hossa/Fillipula or Datsyuk line, I thought the third line might be freed up to make a difference on the scoresheet. Yes, nobody gets to put on the winged wheel unless they've got playoff-tested defensive bona fides, but the Penguins' third line ought to be getting a goal every third game, at the least. It's not too much to ask, and it will absolutely be the difference between another early summer disappointment and a Stanley Cup parade down Boulevard of the Allies.

Through Game Three, this Final is just like last year's in terms of game outcomes and locales. One crucial difference is that in 2008's Game Three Sidney Crosby willed the team to a win by scoring two goals. He hasn't done that yet, and while he may not have a dominant game like that this year, the law of averages suggests he will. With Malkin consistently contributing in ways that he didn't until it was too late in last year's Final, the Penguins are just a bounce or two behind the Wings this year. That still means they're a bounce or two behind, though. Still, though, how do you make adjustments when the game results have been so counterintuitive? The Wings are rarely outshot. The Penguins outshot them in Games One and Two and lost each of those by two goals, then were badly outshot by the Wings in Game Three and didn't show up for the second period, and yet won. The Penguins have scored first in two of the games, but won only one of them. One difference last night was that the game was tied going into the third. Here's one point of consistency: if the Wings are ahead going into the third, you will not overcome that deficit.

"Oh, yeah? Just watch me," said Max Talbot a year ago yesterday.