Third-line teammates Jordan Staal and Tyler Kennedy gave the Penguins a two-goal lead, and Fleury held off the defending champion Red Wings repeatedly during a frantic third period as Pittsburgh beat Detroit 2-1 Tuesday night to tie the final series at 3-all.
Game 7 is Friday night at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, where the Red Wings are 3-0 in the series. But as the oldest of NHL playoff adages goes, anything can happen when a single game determines who raises a silver trophy.
Fleury, yanked during Detroit’s 5-0 blowout in Game 5, regrouped to make 25 saves. He held off the Red Wings, who are trying for their fifth Stanley Cup since 1997. The Red Wings won the Cup by taking Game 6 in Pittsburgh 3-2 last year but were denied a second successive Cup clincher there.
Staal broke a scoreless tie that followed a Pittsburgh-dominated first period by scoring in the first minute of the second period and Kennedy made it 2-0 early in the third.
After that, it was all Detroit as Kris Draper scored and the Red Wings, desperately trying to avoid a Game 7, kept pressing for the tying goal.
The Penguins were helped along by a standing room crowd of 17,132 - the 118th consecutive sellout in the NHL’s oldest building - that chanted Fleury’s name at the start in an effort to support him.
Staal’s goal was the key. He broke in with Kennedy on a 2-on-1 break. Staal’s initial shot deflected off goalie Chris Osgood’s chest, but he gathered the rebound near the right post and pushed it in only 51 seconds into the second.
Detroit, outshot 15-4 at the start, finally began generating some offensive momentum early in the third and kept pressing for the tying goal, only to have Kennedy - a third-line forward who has scored in each of Pittsburgh’s last two home games - make it 2-0 at 5:35.
Ruslan Fedotenko and Max Talbot pressured to keep the puck in the Detroit zone, allowing Kennedy to gather it behind the net and carry it in front. Osgood stopped his initial shot but Kennedy pushed in the rebound.
The Red Wings sliced it to 2-1 when an undefended Draper grabbed Jonathan Ericsson’s rebound in the left circle and put it past Fleury 2½ minutes after Kennedy scored.
After that, the Red Wings’ best chance came when Fleury left the puck in the crease. But defenseman Rob Scuderi alertly whacked it away, and Fleury made a big save on Dan Cleary with 1:41 remaining.
