PITTSBURGH -- Moments after the Detroit Red Wings had sweated and strained and hauled themselves within one victory of winning the franchise's 11th Stanley Cup championship, forward Pavel Datsyuk was riding an exercise bike in a dank, narrow hallway at Mellon Arena.
He looked for all the world as if his team had just beaten Columbus on a random Thursday in February, not that it had tenaciously scratched out a 2-1 victory over the Penguins to take a prohibitive 3-1 series lead.
Inside the cramped visitors' locker room, the rest of the Red Wings were similarly straight-faced, conducting their business as usual even though the circumstances were as unusual as could be.
Without Tomas Holmstrom, whose pulled hamstring was too sore for him to suit up, the Red Wings were forced to play a tight, gritty defensive game, and they succeeded on every level.
They killed a Pittsburgh five-on-three power play late in the third period while protecting their 2-1 lead, a marvel of perseverance and poise.
They got some clutch saves from Chris Osgood, including a tip-in attempt by Evgeni Malkin with four seconds to play.
They ended Pittsburgh's 17-game home winning streak and put themselves in position Monday to win their fourth title in 11 years, to add a jewel to a string they began in 1997, continued in 1998 and replenished in 2002.
And they will get that chance Monday at Joe Louis Arena, where they are 9-1 this spring, including shutouts of the Penguins in Games 1 and 2.
It's a measure of their character that not once did any Red Wings player gloat about the advantageous position the team occupies.
The most any player allowed himself was a weary smile, but even those were fleeting.
"Our experience of going through this before, this is where it helps," said forward Darren McCarty, one of five Red Wings with three Cup titles to his credit.
"It's sort of second nature. This is the task at hand. We don't start thinking about other things. We have to play our best game of the year Monday night in Detroit. If we play our best game we'll be all right."
No one said anything incendiary. No one provided material that might be posted on the Penguins' bulletin board to provide motivation for a rally.
The Red Wings are too smart for that.
"We know what's at stake here. It's in the back of our minds," said Kirk Maltby, another of the team's three-time Cup champions.
