PITTSBURGH — To walk into the Penguins’ locker room on the morning of Monday’s Game 3 is to feel the confidence this eight-seed gained by splitting the first two matches of the opening round in New York.
They are confident in their game plan and they are confident in their execution coming off the pair of games at the Garden in which their Presidents’ Trophy-winning opponents were unable to assert their superiority for any meaningful stretch.
“We feel we can outplay them five-on-five,” Pittsburgh defenseman Ben Lovejoy said. “They’re a really good team, and they got a lot of confidence from their regular season, where we were not a confident group the last couple of weeks of the season.