Penguins don’t wave white flag

The Pittsburgh Penguins weren’t about to go quietly.

After watching the Detroit Red Wings celebrate on their home ice a year ago, the Penguins this time held serve at home in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup finals rematch to record a 2-1 victory at Mellon Arena on Tuesday night. The win in front of 17,132 fans, most wearing white T-shirts and waving white towels, evened the best-of-seven series at 3-3 and set up a Game 7 showdown for the NHL championship in Detroit on Friday night.

A game after being pulled after yielding five goals in a Game 5 loss, Marc-Andre Fleury was stellar in the net with 25 saves to record the victory, and Jordan Staal and Tyler Kennedy scored to provide the offense.

“Everyone played really well,” said Staal, who scored in the opening minute of the second period to give the Penguins a 1-0 lead. “Everyone stepped up their game and everyone was battling out there. It’s a great feeling, [but] it doesn’t end tonight. We have a big test on Friday and we know they’re going to come back with a better effort.”

Staal’s goal came after he chipped the puck past Detroit’s Brett Lebda and raced in two-on-one with teammate Matt Cooke with Jonathan Ericsson defending. Red Wings goalie Chris Osgood stopped Staal’s first attempt, but the rebound came right back to the center and he put it home for his second goal of the series.

“I got a chip off the wall and kind of got a step on their D,” Staal said. “I took it down and saw Cooke driving the net. I shot short-side and it came right back to me and I buried my head and fired it.”

Kennedy’s goal early in the third made it 2-0. Skating behind the Red Wings’ net, Maxime Talbot first eluded Detroit’s Nicklas Lidstrom and later found his teammate with a pass and Kennedy flipped it past Osgood from the left post.

Kris Draper’s first goal of the postseason cut the deficit to 2-1 midway through the third, but Fleury and the Pittsburgh defense held on. The goalie stopped Dan Cleary on a breakaway with just under two minutes remaining.

“I knew that could be a turning point if I could make the save,” Fleury said of the stop on Cleary.

“I tried to be patient and wait for him to make the first move and I got a piece of it.”

Defenseman Rob Scuderi bailed out Fleury and his teammates when he blocked a Detroit attempt during a scramble in the waning seconds to preserve the victory.

“We had a bad game [Saturday night],” Scuderi said about a 5-0 loss in Game 5. “They don’t hand out the Stanley Cup after three games, that’s what we were saying to ourselves.”

Friday night’s contest will be the 15th Game 7 in Stanley Cup finals history. The home team has a 12-2 record in those games.

“They won more races and more battles, had more play, were on top of us more and they kept us outside,” Red Wings Coach Mike Babcock said.

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ckuc@tribune.com