TAMPA — Sidney Crosby broke it down in clear terms on Tuesday morning.
“It’s up to everyone else to kind of analyze all the different storylines around (Game 6), but it’s pretty simple,” the Pittsburgh Penguins captain said.
“If you grew up playing hockey, you had to win a semifinal and you had to win a final (for complete success).”
The Penguins were a confident group in the hours leading up to Game 6 of the Eastern Conference final on Tuesday night against the Tampa Bay Lightning at Amalie Arena. There were questions about the comment Evgeni Malkin made a day earlier, when he put forth a sort-of guarantee that the series would be heading back to Pittsburgh for Game 7 on Thursday night.