Home or away what the Sharks must do is rediscover their scoring touch which has disappeared under a suffocating Pittsburgh defense and the sparkling play of rookie netminder Matt Murray, who has picked up 14 playoff wins.
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Pavelski, who is a minus-3 in the final, saw more ice time in Game 4 than any other Sharks forward (24:54) and put five of his nine series shots on net.
In the last two rounds against the Sharks and the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Penguins have scored first in 9 of 11 games.
And if they win Game 5, everything changes – at least from their perspective.
Kessel recorded two assists in Monday’s Game 4 victory as the Pittsburgh Penguins seized a 3-1 series lead, further bolstering his candidacy for the Conn Smythe as playoff MVP with a team-high 21 points.
The Pittsburgh Penguins could change that in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final at Consol Energy Center on Thursday – and prices have spiked in response on the secondary ticket market.
In 2014, Pittsburgh gagged a second-round playoff series against the New York Rangers despite roaring out to a 3-1 series advantage. Why can’t we be the first team to do it?’ They almost blew the Sharks out of the water in the opening 20 minutes of this series and San Jose has been playing catch up ever since. The Sharks were victims of one two years ago against the Los Angeles Kings, who rallied from a 3-0 deficit to win four straight.
Watching the Penguins practice on Wednesday you wouldn’t think they could be celebrating a title in 36 hours time.
Bounce-back performances from those two key players moved the Penguins to the brink of winning the Stanley Cup. “We’ve got to find a way here. We are telling ourselves this has to be our best game”.
“Our players are well aware, just based on their comments after the game last night, excited to be in the position we’re in, but by no means do we think that we’ve accomplished what we’ve set out to do”, Sullivan said.
“It’s not an easy game”, Couture said.
There is no magic button, even if the correlation between Mike Sullivan’s deft attempts to a get player’s attention and that player nearly immediately elevating his game is unmistakable.
The Sharks haven’t played with a lead all series long, and it’s putting a lot of pressure on coach Pete DeBoer to shorten the bench. “We can always get better and improve”, he said.
“I don’t know”, DeBoer answered. “I think that’s the approach we’re going to take”. We’ve been through it a number of elimination games already.
And while the Sharks are dipping into a daunting situation to try to prevent the Penguins from winning the Cup at home, Pavelski said after Game 4 that he’s not ready to let the prey escape the predator. “We have a lot of good leadership in the room and a lot of guys who’ve been through a lot”. Then it would be back to San Jose for Game 6. Sharks coach Peter DeBoer said Tuesday that Hertl remains day-to-day and DoBoer is “hopeful” Hertl could return.
After four games, they know the Pittsburgh Penguins have outplayed them in each game, and they have dug themselves a huge hole in falling behind 3-1.
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Jones made two saves on the Penguins’ power play, including one on superstar Evgeni Malkin, to keep San Jose’s deficit at one goal.
