After five games in any best-of-seven series, the lead can only be be 4-1 or 3-2.
If it is 4-1, well, one team has already booked tee times and is planning a locker-room cleanout.
If it's 3-2 there's, potentially, still two more games to play.
Obviously, Mike Sullivan would rather see his team leading the Capitals instead of trailing, but that's OK. His Penguins have been down this hole before and climbed out of it.
They did so just two years ago in the 2016 Eastern Conference final when they had to beat Tampa Bay in the final two games. That season certainly had a happy ending for Pittsburgh, didn't it? In fact, Sullivan's team has won its last four games when facing elimination.
That's why Sullivan isn't going to overthink this stuff now. His team's focus is the same as it's always been: The next game.
"What we're looking at is going out and winning one hockey game and that's all we need to do," Sullivan was saying on a conference call Sunday, an off-day for his team. "I know we're very capable of that. We're not looking beyond it, we're not looking behind it. We're trying to learn from each experience. We're trying to focus on the task in front of us and stay in the moment, and I think that's an important part of playing this time of year and playing in the playoffs and being able to deal with some of the adversities that are associated with the playoffs."
That next game for the Penguins comes tomorrow night at PPG Paints Arena when they host the Capitals in a must-win Game 6. In his booming Bostonian accent, Sullivan sounded confident as ever in his team. Why? He likes his team's experience and, what he calls its "attitude."
"I think it comes down to character and the people we have in the dressing room," the coach was saying to me. "These guys are competitive guys. They know what it takes to win. They're not afraid of a challenge and they embrace these type of situations. We have the utmost confidence in the group that we have. They're a battle-tested group and I know our guys are looking forward to the opportunity to play tomorrow night."
The Capitals are certainly battle-tested as well. They've reached the postseason 10 of the last 11 years, but they've never advanced beyond the second round. They haven't done that since 1998.
The Penguins have beaten them in nine of their last 10 playoff meetings, including each of the last two years. The last seven times the Caps have faced elimination against Pittsburgh, dating back to the 2009 Eastern Conference semifinals, they are 4-3 but have failed to win the fourth and deciding game in each of the three series. This will be the first time since the 1995 Eastern Conference quarterfinals that Washington will have multiple chances to close out Pittsburgh. Twenty-three years ago, the Capitals held a 3-1 series lead but lost in seven games.
Those were different teams and different circumstances, of course.
Rallying for a 6-3 win Saturday night at Capital One Arena, the Capitals have been the better team for most of the series, though Sullivan reiterated that there were plenty of positives to take away from Game 5.
"The reality is that every team that's left are really good teams and there's going to be emotional ups and downs," he said. "Although we're disappointed in the result from (Saturday night) there was a lot of what we liked and that's what we have to take away from it. I know our guys felt good about their respective games. We have to learn from the mistakes we made and be ready to move by it and be prepared for the challenge right in front of us."
• Having faced them five times in the last two weeks, Sullivan said that there's not much to learn watching video.
"Our players are well aware of where we can be better," he said. "There will be a little bit of video but not very much. I'm not sure as we go on that we're going to learn much more in the five games that we've played them. We tend to use a little less video as the series goes on. Certainly we'll address some of the areas where we think we can improve and get better that will help us in Game 6, but our players are well aware of the type of game that we played and when we've had success and why we've had success and we just have to remember that as we go into Game 6."
• In addition to scoring the first postseason goal of his career at 2:23 of the first period:
Jamie Oleksiak played 17:27 in Game 5, his most minutes since Game 2 when Brian Dumoulin went out with an upper body injury. Oleksiak also played 1:27 shorthanded. He had been playing as little as 9:30 late in the first round vs. Philadelphia.
"We made a decision to create a little more balance with our defense pairs and spread the minutes a little bit more, and we've certainly liked what we've seen from all six of them (defensemen) at this point," Sullivan said. "I think Jamie is a guy that benefits from that. He tends to play better the more minutes he plays. I think the game last night might have been his strongest game of the series."
• Barry Trotz also made in-game adjustments in Game 5, moving Jakub Vrana up to right wing on the Capitals' top line with Alex Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov during the first period. Devante Smith-Pelly had been holding the spot held by Tom Wilson, who was serving the second of his three-game suspension.
The move paid off as the speedy 22-year-old Vrana set up Washington's tying goal and scored the game winner at 15:22 of the third period:
Sullivan said Washington's line combinations change little from his team's perspective.
"At the end of the day, all we can do is control what's within our control and our focus is on our team, not so much our opponents. Obviously we're aware of the matchups we're looking for. We're understanding of the line combinations that they have and some of the key guys that are associated with those line combinations if our opponents choose to tweak those lines. That really doesn't change the game plan that we put in place for our team. From our standpoint, it didn't change at all."
Speaking with reporters in Washington, Trotz was non-committal about keeping Vrana on his top line with the Penguins holding the last change in Game 6.
• While a 6-3 score would indicate a wide-open offensive game, Sullivan said that Game 5 wasn't much different than Game 4. He pointed to the Penguins' second-period performance when his team scored a pair of power play goals and limited Washington to just five shots.
"You have to give them credit," he said. "They have a good team and have difference-makers on their team as well. You have two really good hockey teams playing against one another. I think both teams are trying to pay attention to details as far as playing away from the puck and trying to be solid defensively, but the other side has some offensive firepower too. Certainly we know the commitment that's necessary to play away from the puck and play good, solid team defense and we're going to surely be focused on that moving forward."
• To the surprise of no one -- except maybe Trotz -- there was no supplementary discipline forthcoming from the NHL for Jake Guentzel's third period, full-body check on John Carlson:
Both Carlson and Backstrom left Game 5 with upper body injuries. Trotz said that Carlson "is fine" and that he expects Backstrom, second on the Capitals in scoring (13 points), to play tomorrow. The Swede appeared to have been hurt blocking a shot with his hand in the first period.
• According to NBC, Saturday night's game posted a 25.8 rating in Pittsburgh, the network's best for a second-round game in the market. Washington delivered an 8.5 rating, the Peacock Network's second-best rating in the D.C. market for any game. Only the Capitals' 2012 first-round Game 6 against Boston drew a higher rating (8.7).