There sure looked to be an inevitability to the Red Wings’ march to the Stanley Cup on Monday night/Tuesday morning.

The Wings buzzed around the Penguins’ net the whole night and, were it not for goalie Marc-Andre Fleury and his otherwordly 55 saves, the Penguins would be shaving their playoff beards today and the Hockeytowners would be hosting another Stanley Cup parade.

Instead, the Pittsburghers pulled off the amazing, a triple-overtime 4-3 win that sends the series back to Pittsburgh for Game 6, with the Red Wings up 3-2.

As for Evgeni Malkin and all the bumpf about the winning number in the Pennsylvania Big Four Lottery being 7171, his jersey number repeated, let me say this about that.

Malkin was awful last night.

Notwithstanding his assist on the overtime winner, he has been in a fog the entire series. It’s not often I agree with Don Cherry – heck, most of the time I can’t even follow what he’s saying – but he correctly noted that the Russian youngster is totally off his game. Whereas he dominated the Rangers and Flyers, Malkin looks lost against the relentless forechecking and tight neutral zone play of the Red Wings.

Several times Malkin failed to even get the puck deep into the Detroit zone so dog-tired teammates could change, let alone pose any offensive threat.

But Malkin had company. Jordan Staal was equally brutal last night, continually out of position and offering little or no resistance to Detroit forwards. The most glaring example, of course, being on Detroit’s first goal. Staal left the zone early, waiting for the puck to come around the boards, where instead it was kept in at the last moment and, seconds later, the Penguins were fishing the puck out of the back of their net.

If the Penguins need to look for inspiration, look no further than the two Ryans -- Whitney and Malone. Whitney was a monster on defence after teammate Sergei Gonchar was injured and Malone took a puck in the face and was carted off with blood gushing from his nose, only to return later in the game. Guess who was parked in front of Chris Osgood on Petr Sykora’s game winner? Yep, Malone.

No doubt about it the Penguins are lucky to be alive, but if Malkin and Staal can get their heads out of the fog of fatigue, then maybe Pittsburgh can force one more trip to scenic Hockeytown.