Conor Sheary #43 celebrates with teammates after scoring the game-winning goal to defeat the San Jose Sharks 2-1 during overtime in Game 2.Justin K. Aller/Getty Images
The called-shot home run is Babe Ruth territory, legendary baseball lore.
Did Sidney Crosby call the shot on the Pittsburgh Penguins' overtime game winner, which produced Wednesday's 2-1 victory over the San Jose Sharks and gave them a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven Stanley Cup final?
According to teammates Kris Letang, the set-up man, and Conor Sheary, who scored the game winner, that's exactly what happened. It was early in overtime of a game the Penguins had mostly controlled when Crosby, just before a face-off in the Sharks' zone, flip-flopped the team's defence pair and re-positioned Sheary off the boards.
Crosby then proceeded to cleanly win the draw from Joel Ward, and worked the puck back to Letang at the point. Letang then dished a short pass off to Sheary, who got lost in coverage in the Sharks' zone. His shot from the top of the face-off circle eluded goaltender Martin Jones and sent the capacity crowd at the Consol Energy Centre into rapture.
Crosby was his usual self-deprecating self afterward, laughing as he told reporters that he calls 25 face-off plays per game, so until Sheary's overtime winner, the first 24 didn't work at all. But really, as long as the last one goes in, it doesn't matter much, does it?
"It usually doesn't work out like that when you draw up a play or even talk about a play," acknowledged Sheary, at the postgame press conference. "But I think they kind of lost me when I came off the wall there. I had a lot of time to shoot. It worked out."
The Penguins won their two home games and looked awfully good doing it too, with Crosby leading the way. In the battle of the NHL superstars, he is clearly meeting the challenge – strong on face-offs, making plays, communicating with his teammates, showing leadership everywhere, on the bench and on the ice.
"Sid, he's just been a horse out there," said Penguins' coach Mike Sullivan. "He's a threat every time he's on the ice. He's playing the game the right way. He plays a complete game, the full sheet.
"For me right now, I think he's inspiring for our group. I know our players recognize the effort that he's putting in. You can see it in his body language. He's excited about this opportunity that we have. He's trying to make the most of it. He's doing everything in his power to help this team win right now."
The Sharks, meantime, didn't have much going for them, and it was left to coach Peter DeBoer to put a brave face on their plight.
"Game 1 was decided in the last two minutes," said DeBoer. "Tonight is an overtime game. I think we'll hold off on the funeral. We have a lot of hockey left to play."
No question, but they'll have to play it at a far higher level to get back in the series.
Thus far in the series, Pittsburgh has been just a little bit better in all the important, decisive parts of the game.
San Jose is here, in the final, largely because of its exceptional power-play production. So far, in the series, it hasn't even had the chance to get off the launching pad. The Sharks scored on just a single opportunity, back in Game 1, a 3-2 loss. In the second game, Pittsburgh's discipline was such that San Jose didn't get another chance with the man advantage until Penguins' defenceman Ian Cole took an interference penalty against playoff scoring leader Logan Couture with 1:11 to go in the second period.
So much of San Jose's game involves getting the lead, forcing the opposition to take chances, and then capitalizing on their over-aggression.
Instead, Pittsburgh is playing a swarming defensive game, blocking shots and otherwise protecting Murray so well that the big shooters on San Jose – notably Joe Thornton, Joe Pavelski and Couture – have been frustrated at every turn.
"We have to find a way to create some more five-on-five offence," said DeBoer. "They're not taking penalties, so we've got to find a way to do this five-on-five or push them into taking some more penalties."
On a night when Pittsburgh had the territorial edge for the second game in a row, San Jose forced overtime with 4:05 remaining on a goal by defenceman Justin Braun, his first of the playoffs.
Braun, who left the team briefly to attend the funeral of his father-in-law, Tom Lysiak, scored with a seeing-eyed shot that caromed in off the post and past Penguins' goaltender Matt Murray to tie the game and briefly give the Sharks hope that they could maybe steal the game.
Pittsburgh's other goal was Phil Kessel's 10th of the playoffs just before the midway point of the game.
Carl Hagelin, Nick Bonino and Kessel, known as the HBK line, are nominally third on the Penguins' depth chart, but they have now accumulated 50 scoring points in these playoffs. Bonino, who scored the game winner in the opener, is a former San Jose draft choice, who was traded away before he ever played a game for the team.
As for Sheary, he became the first rookie to score an overtime game winner in the Stanley Cup final since Brian Skrudland managed the trick for the Montreal Canadiens in their 1986 series against the Calgary Flames.
There were a number of close chances in the game and probably five shots that clanged off the post or crossbar. A "clankfest" is what television analyst Pierre McGuire called it.
Down 2-0, the only saving grace for the Sharks is that they've been excellent on home ice throughout these playoffs.
In fact, home-ice records represent one of the curious anomalies of the 2016 postseason. For the 14 teams previously eliminated in playoff action, their collective home record was 29-37 for a dismal .439 winning percentage. Road warriors ruled everywhere except for Pittsburgh and San Jose, who are now a combined 16-5 on home ice following Wednesday's action.
Pittsburgh has won 25 of their past 32 games at home dating to Jan. 17 (regular season and playoffs), but the Sharks set a franchise record for road wins (28-10-3) during the regular season. Their 28 road wins led the NHL and tied for the second-most in NHL history, trailing only the Red Wings' 31 such wins in 2005-06.
Now, however, they are an ordinary 5-6 away from home in the postseason and eventually will need to win on the road if they have any hopes of earning the Stanley Cup in franchise history. For the Sharks, the next step will be reversing the Penguins' momentum when they get back home, where their crowd has created motivation and energy for them throughout the playoffs.
"The problem is, if you're not scoring, every mistake you make potentially costs you the game," assessed DeBoer. "You can't put those things under a microscope this time of year. You have two teams that are playing really tight hockey. One mistake changes the game. You're not going to play mistake-free.
"I liked us across the board a lot better than in Game 1. A little puck luck, we win that game. We didn't. We had Nashville up 2-0. They came back and pushed us to seven. They held serve at home, we've got to do the same thing."
Statistically, however, things look utterly promising for the Penguins, who were revitalized in the second half following a coaching change. Historically, the only other time the home team has won the first two games of the final but did not ultimately win the Stanley Cup was in 1971, when the Blackhawks took a 2-0 series lead before losing to the Montreal Canadiens in seven games.