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Joe Starkey: Penguins continue season-long high wire act

Everybody OK?

Man, did this one have that ominous Game 7 feel from the start. Kind of like a lot of home Game 7s from Penguins history. Kind of like Joe Louis Arena in 2009, only this time the Penguins were the champion-home-team favorite.

It felt a little like 2010, too, but those Penguins fell short in their defense of the Cup when they squandered a 3-2 series lead against an inferior opponent and lost Game 7 at home.

These Penguins, somehow, did not.

These Penguins survived, in double overtime of an instant-classic Game 7, when Chris Kunitz beat the seemingly unbeatable Craig Anderson for a 3-2 victory that sent a sellout crowd into a state of bliss and the Penguins into the Stanley Cup Final against the Nashville Predators.