Dan Daly: Best of all places awaits for a memorable series

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By Dan Daly

PITTSBURGH

Why not a seventh game between the Capitals and Penguins? Heck, why not an eighth game? Why not keep playing until Gary Bettman says stop - which may be never?

They've had at each other for 10 days now, the Caps and the Pens, and it's still too close to call. Just look at the scores - 3-2, 4-3, 3-2 (overtime), 5-3 (it was 4-3 late), 4-3 (more OT) and, Monday night, 5-4 at Mellon Arena on an overtime goal by third-liner David Steckel that sent the series back to Washington for resolution.

And if that doesn't settle things, maybe it'll go to the Supreme Court.

I, personally, wouldn't have it any other way. This is a matchup - Alex Ovechkin vs. Sidney Crosby, the present and future of the NHL on glorious display - that deserves to go the distance. No matter what happens Wednesday at the Phone Booth, it will be, without question, one of the most memorable events in Washington sports history.

It's just a question of whether those memories, from a D.C. standpoint, will be happy or... the other kind, the kind Capitals followers are all too familiar with. (Of course, Caps followers were all too familiar with losing overtime playoff games - seven straight - before Steckel broke the string Monday night.)

"It's going to be hard for them to come back in our building because the fans are going to be crazy," Ovechkin said, "... and we're going to be flying, too."

But if there's anything this series has taught us, it's to wait until all the votes are tallied, until the last second has ticked off the clock. Consider: In Game 5, both teams blew a lead in the third period - and in Game 6, both teams did it again.

"It's been like that the whole series," Mike Green said. "We get up, they come back. They get up, we come back. Mentally, it's been a roller coaster."

A roller coaster along the lines of the Cyclone at Coney Island - the kind where it's hard to keep food down.