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Penguins take game three

By WKBW Sports

Penguins take game three

July 8, 2010 Updated Jul 8, 2010 at 3:44 PM EDT

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Sergei Gonchar said it once, then repeated it
again a few seconds later as he tried pumping some confidence into
some discouraged teammates: It's not over.
Thanks to Gonchar's power-play goal midway through the third
period that revived the Penguins after the Detroit Red Wings
pressed for the go-ahead score, the Stanley Cup finals are far from
over for Pittsburgh following a 4-2 victory in Game 3 on Tuesday
night.
Game 4, which could have been an elimination game for
Pittsburgh, will be Thursday night. Either the defending champion
Red Wings can take a stranglehold 3-1 lead or the Penguins can make
the finals a best-of-three after losing the first two in Detroit.
Gonchar's slap shot from center point off Evgeni Malkin's pass
sailed past Chris Osgood as Bill Guerin and Sidney Crosby screened
the goalie. The Penguins prevented the Red Wings from taking a 3-0
series lead that would have allowed them to clinch their fifth
Stanley Cup since 1997 as early as Thursday.
Malkin assisted on the first three Penguins goals, giving him 33
points in 20 games, the most in the playoffs since Joe Sakic's 34
for Stanley Cup champion Colorado in 1996.
Gonchar, and first-period scores by Max Talbot and Kris Letang,
gave the Penguins hope again, just as they did by winning Game 3 by
3-2 on a pair of Crosby goals in last year's finals. The Red Wings
went on to win that one in six.
Talbot added an empty-net score in the final minute.
The way they played for much of Game 3, it looked like Detroit
was trying to win this one in three.
They outshot the Penguins 26-11 following a furious first two
periods that featured five-minute stretches of continuous
up-and-down play, numerous scoring chances at both ends - and, the
way the Red Wings kept pressuring, plenty of tentativeness by
towel-waving Penguins fans nervous they might see the Penguins'
season effectively end.
Instead, Gonchar was right.
One of the few Penguins players at the rink on a day off Monday,
he constantly repeated that the Penguins did enough right during
their twin 3-1 losses in Detroit to encourage them. Guerin also
downplayed the fact 31 of the previous 32 teams to win the first
two games at home went on to win the series, saying that meant
nothing in these finals.

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