Hard work pays off for Penguins

They had superstars block shots and support players score goals, meaning that the Pittsburgh Penguins essentially turned themselves inside out Tuesday to defeat the Detroit Red Wings and claw their way back into the Stanley Cup finals.

The Penguins’ 4-2 victory at Mellon Arena took an extraordinary effort on many fronts, from the opening and closing goals scored by Maxime Talbot -- who found the net only 12 times in 75 regular-season games -- to Evgeni Malkin’s block of a Nicklas Lidstrom slap shot with 84 seconds left in the third period and Pittsburgh protecting a one-goal lead before Talbot found an empty net.

The Penguins are still traveling a difficult path, trailing two games to one, but they prevented the series from becoming a Red Wings runaway and they’ll play on their home ice again Thursday.

“Now we have a chance to tie this thing up with Game 4,” Penguins Coach Dan Bylsma said, simplifying an effort that was anything but simple.

It took more sweat and exertion than they might have believed they could produce, but they stayed calm when they might have dissolved into chaos and dented the armor of the Red Wings, whose penalty killing has been the lone weakness in their attempt to win a second successive Cup championship.

“That’s the mental and physical grind of the playoffs,” Penguins captain Sidney Crosby said after recording his first point of the finals, an assist on Sergei Gonchar’s decisive power-play goal at 10:29 of the third period.

“You’re adjusting constantly. You’re working hard. Some things don’t go right.

“Some other times you find a way to make things happen.

“We always talk about ‘It’s always about the next shift,’ and that’s the way we really have to look at it. It’s a battle out there and it’s tight, but it’s playoff hockey and it’s where we want to be this time of the year.”

The Penguins won this battle after weathering Detroit’s 14-4 barrage in the second period and returning to their locker room to hear Bylsma urge them to relax.

Those wise words struck a chord and did more to help them than any lecture might have.

“Bear down, stay with it, keep it simple,” Talbot said of Bylsma’s message.

“We knew how we needed to play to be successful in the third and to win that third period.”

And so they did, aided by a power play gained when Jonathan Ericsson was penalized for interfering with Matt Cooke at 9:06.

They capitalized on that chance when Gonchar, who missed more than half the season while recovering from shoulder surgery and was hobbled by a knee-on-knee hit from Washington’s Alexander Ovechkin during Pittsburgh’s second-round series, powered a 50-foot slap shot past a screened Chris Osgood to give Pittsburgh a 3-2 lead.

“They picked it up a notch. They had to,” Detroit defenseman Brad Stuart said of the Penguins.

The same can’t be said of the Red Wings’ penalty killing. Previously burned for a power-play goal at 15:57 of the first period after a Pittsburgh faceoff win set up Kris Letang for a 45-foot blast, they have allowed opponents to score 18 goals in 63 chances, a paltry 71.4% success rate.

The Red Wings had enough other strengths to sweep Columbus and beat the Ducks in seven games and overwhelm a young Blackhawks team in five games, but the Penguins have the potential to turn that penalty-killing crack into a chasm.

“It’s tough to point out one thing or else we would have done it before,” Stuart said of Detroit’s penalty-killing woes.

Crosby said the Penguins’ success stemmed from quick puck movement and surviving the Red Wings’ intense early penalty-killing pressure. “We just wanted to make sure we focused on our battle level,” Crosby said, “and we knew that was something that could help us a lot.”

They competed hard against a battle-tested team and emerged with a victory and reasons for optimism.

Besides their power-play success, they look at the way Henrik Zetterberg was overextended on Tuesday as a result of Detroit Coach Mike Babcock’s eagerness to match him against Crosby at every chance.

Zetterberg played 24 minutes 19 seconds, second only to Lidstrom’s 26:40. Tuesday’s game was Detroit’s third in four nights and Thursday will be the fourth in six; playing him so much was a lot to ask of even Zetterberg, who’s so skilled at shutting down opponents.

The Penguins still must prove they can make all those factors work in their favor. It was one win. A good one but only one.

“This series is where it should be,” Babcock said.

The question now is who will take control of it from here.

--

helene.elliott@latimes.com