The Penguins are up 3-1 in the best-of-seven series and could play again Sunday in San Jose and June 15 in Pittsburgh if they don’t win Thursday.
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“Coming out here as a first-year coach, I thought I would hear that from these guys, ” he said.
“They’ve (his players) been where Pittsburgh is sitting right now (in earlier rounds), saw how quickly that can turn if you lose a game or the momentum swings the other way”, DeBoer said. I don’t know what the stats are, but I’m sure they back that up. “If you want me to leave today, I’ll leave”.
By comparison, there have only been 10 comebacks each from a 3-1 playoff deficit in the National Basketball Association – this year’s Warriors against Oklahoma City were the 10th – and Major League Baseball. That’s what ruined him in Boston and that reputation has dogged him throughout his run in San Jose.
Some might say that “Jumbo Joe” doesn’t have that kind of game. “You’ve got to try to go about eating healthy, getting a good night’s sleep, come back to the rink, have a good pre-game skate, have a good nap and then you can start really dialing it up”.
The Pittsburgh Penguins coach insists he’s just doing his job, one that has brought the underachieving team to within three periods of a Stanley Cup that seems as inevitable now as it seemed unlikely when he took over in mid-December.
Still, the attention this series – and especially Game 5 -has generated is unlike anything the Penguins experienced in the regular season.
Pittsburgh has shut down San Jose’s top guns.
“When you talk about biggest games in Pittsburgh in the last 50 years, this game is in the conversation”, said Joe Starkey, talk radio host for Pittsburgh’s 93.7 The Fan. “It’s a little bit different”.
The Stanley Cup Final has been massively disappointing for San Jose, which twice defied the oddsmakers during these playoffs with series victories over the Los Angeles Kings and St. Louis Blues to challenge for the championship for the first time in its 25-year history. “We’ve won games all year, and that’s the plan (Thursday)”.
To have another practice just like it, the Sharks will need to come up with their best overall performance of the playoffs, as they trail the Penguins three-games-to-one. San Jose went 12-4 on Eastern Conference ice this season, with wins at Washington, Florida, Tampa Bay, Boston and Detroit. He leads the team in goals and points, netting 10 goals over the last seven weeks.
His speedy line, which includes Carl Hagelin (15 playoff points) and Nick Bonino (17 points), has turned Pittsburgh into a unsafe three-pronged attack. The record for a home team in a Game 5 scenario of the Stanley Cup Final is 369-201 in regulation, 60-53 in overtime. I think that goal is obvious. “Moving forward, I think that’s going to play a big role in giving ourselves a chance”. They’ve all been one-goal games or late-in-the-game losses. I think our players are well aware of it. “It’s going to be hard for them to close us out”.
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