PITTSBURGH — They don’t need a coach. They need a couch, a session with a sports psychologist, a chance to figure out their fears, calm their anxieties and rediscover the balance between desperation and patience.

The Penguins need to stick to their game plan whether they're ahead or trailing. (AP)X’s and O’s aren’t the reason the Pittsburgh Penguins face a 2-0 deficit in the Eastern Conference final. They especially don’t explain why the Pens have been outscored, 9-1, as sound and as structured as the Boston Bruins have been. Losing two games is one thing; losing them by such a lopsided margin is another.

The X’s and O’s are fine. The problem is that the Penguins have veered to W’s and T’s and F’s and gone to &#$% at the first sign of trouble. They have all these superstars, and they’re supposed to win the Stanley Cup, and they want to win it so badly, and they’re trying so hard, too hard.

They have fallen behind in both games and played catch-up hockey. Instead of trusting their talent and tactics, they have slipped into bad habits, tried to do too much too quickly,

PITTSBURGH — It starts with Sidney Crosby, and this started with Sidney Crosby, so let’s start at the beginning.

Sidney Crosby and the Penguins got knocked down early and never recovered in Game 2. (Getty)Trailing in a series for the first time in these playoffs, the Pittsburgh Penguins knew they needed to respond to the Boston Bruins in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference final. Their own coach, Dan Bylsma, had said he thought the team that scored first would win Monday night.

Crosby, who had struggled in the circle in Game 1, won the opening faceoff. Crosby, who had lost his cool in Game 1, took the first shot.

Then Crosby, a finalist for the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player, made the first mistake. The puck bounced to him just inside the Boston blue line. In retrospect, he wished he had made a harder play. But in that moment, he made a soft one – swinging his stick and chipping the puck at two charging Bruins.

Brad Marchand scored on a breakaway, and the Bruins rolled to a 6-1 victory and a 2-0 series lead. From their superstars to their role players to their

For the first time since 1945, when there were only six teams in the NHL and Gordie Howe was still a kid in Saskatchewan, we have a tournament of champions.

Jarome Iginla picked Pittsburgh at the trade deadline to play with Sidney Crosby & Co. (Reuters)Each of the final four teams in the playoffs won the Stanley Cup in the past four years. It’s down to Pittsburgh (2009), Chicago (2010), Boston (2011) and Los Angeles (2012). It’s down to the best.

In our humble estimation, these were the top four teams in the NHL entering the playoffs. They were the top four teams in our Round 1 power rankings. Pittsburgh and Boston were the top two teams in the East and Chicago and Los Angeles were the top two teams in the West in our Round 2 power rankings.

Only two teams have won the Cup twice since 1999: the Detroit Red Wings (2002, 2008) and New Jersey Devils (2000, 2003). No one has won the Cup twice since the salary cap was introduced in 2005-06. That’s about to change, and the Kings have a chance to become the first repeat champions since the Wings in 1997 and ’98.

Is this a blow to the

CHICAGO — The whistle blew, but few heard it.

The 'Hawks were irate when they had a goal waved off late in the third period, but responded like champions. (AP)Defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson had fired the puck into the net Wednesday night, and it looked like the Chicago Blackhawks had pulled ahead of the Detroit Red Wings, 2-1, with 1:47 left in the third period of Game 7. It looked like they were 107 seconds from the Western Conference final. “Chelsea Dagger” played. The fans celebrated. The United Center shook.

Except the whistle blew, and after a moment, everyone realized it.

Penalty call. No goal.

Hjalmarsson said he “went blank” because he was “so mad.” Captain Jonathan Toews said there was “violent emotion” on the Blackhawks’ bench and he couldn’t repeat what came out of his mouth.

“To be honest,” said defenseman Brent Seabrook, “we thought it should have been game over and series over.”

Eventually, it was game over, series over. Seabrook ended up scoring 3:35 into overtime when his wicked wrist shot glanced off the shinpad of Wings defenseman Niklas Kronwall and into the net. This time,

John Tortorella can be a jerk. Maybe he hugs kids and pets dogs and supports charities away from the rink, but that doesn’t make him misunderstood. Far too often he chooses to represent himself and his organization as curt, condescending and profane. He intimidates and embarrasses not just reporters, but players and officials and goodness knows who else. That makes him understood all too well.

The Rangers took a step backwards this season, costing John Tortorella his job. (Getty)That is why so many people are piling on now that he has been fired as the coach of the New York Rangers. It’s like the bully on the playground just got his comeuppance, and suddenly the schoolkids are unafraid to express what they really feel as he sniffs and wipes the blood off his nose. It’s even sweeter that general manager Glen Sather said Tortorella was “a little bit shocked.” What a punch to the gut it must have been.

But that is not why Tortorella was fired. He might be a bully, but he will be back as soon as another team decides it needs a bully – a bully with a Stanley Cup ring and a

DETROIT — It wasn’t the officiating. It wasn’t the heart or character of the Chicago Blackhawks. The difference Monday night was what it so often is in the NHL playoffs – a couple of mistakes, a fluky bounce.

Just when it looked like the WIngs might oust the 'Hawks, Detroit was exposed in the third period. (AP)That’s why the Detroit Red Wings blew the lead, blew the game, blew the chance to eliminate the league’s top regular-season team and blew the opportunity to advance to the Western Conference final. The Wings did not blow the series with their come-from-ahead 4-3 loss, but if they fail to win Game 7 on Wednesday night in Chicago, they will look back on the first 10 minutes of the third period of Game 6.

Then again, maybe not. They’d have to fish the tape out of the trash first.

“We made some young mistakes in the third period,” said Wings coach Mike Babcock, “and they ended up in our net.”

Simple as that, really.

The Wings entered the third with a 2-1 lead, thanks to a knuckleball shot by Joakim Andersson that eluded the glove of Chicago goaltender Corey Crawford. Babcock called

CHICAGO — Out the open door of the Red Wings’ dressing room, the music blared into the hallway before Saturday night’s game. The song was “Lose Yourself” by Eminem, a Detroit artist. But the lyrics seemed to speak to Chicago. One shot … one opportunity … Would you capture it, or just let it slip?

The Blackhawks showed plenty of battle in Game 5 to stay alive against the Red Wings. (AP)Facing a 3-1 deficit in this second-round playoff series, the Blackhawks knew one more loss would ruin everything – the record 24 straight games without a regulation loss to start the season, the Presidents’ Trophy as the NHL’s top regular-season team. He’s so mad, but he won’t give up that easy, no. He won’t have it. He knows his whole back’s to these ropes. It don’t matter …

“We didn’t want a great season like this to end like this,” said Blackhawks forward Andrew Shaw.

And so they made sure it didn’t. The Blackhawks looked like the Blackhawks in a 4-1 victory, staving off elimination and setting up Game 6 on Monday night in Detroit. They hit. They skated. They cracked Wings goaltender Jimmy

DETROIT — If you’re a fan of the Detroit Red Wings, you have seen this before.

The Wings are leaning on their goaltending more than at any point in the past 25 years. (AP)You have seen a team stacked with stars roll through the regular season, then run into an underdog that just, will, not, go, away. You have seen shot after shot disappear into the gear of some hot goalie in some early round in the playoffs, and you have felt the frustration and the fear that your shot at the Stanley Cup might disappear, too.

Except this time the team stacked with stars that rolled through the regular season is the Chicago Blackhawks. The underdog is the Wings. The hot goalie isn’t Jean-Sebastien Giguere or Miikka Kiprusoff or Dwayne Roloson ruining everything at the other end, but Jimmy Howard saving everything for Detroit.

Somehow it is the seventh-seeded Wings who hold the 3-1 lead in this second-round series, and it will be Chicago and the United Center that will be tense Saturday night for Game 5 with the ’Hawks, the 2010 Stanley Cup champions, the 2013 winners of the Presidents’ Trophy