Defensive priority keys flip

Michel Therrien has the Penguins concentrating hard in their own zone.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A little more than two years ago, coach Michel Therrien — 11 games into his tenure behind the Pittsburgh Penguins bench — ripped his club for its evident indifference to defense.

Now, one win away from the Stanley Cup finals, the hard-nosed taskmaster looks back fondly on the night his club bought into the rough message he sent.

“When I came to Pittsburgh, the team was in last place,” Therrien said Wednesday. “When you’re in last place, there is a reason. They had good players, but the commitment, not only defensively, but the all-around commitment was not there.

“If you want to have some success, we had to change everything: the attitude, work ethic, and commitment, because we were going the wrong way.”

Not anymore. The Penguins are 11-1 in the playoffs and own a 3-0 lead for the third straight series. They can wrap up the Eastern Conference finals as early as tonight when they face the Flyers again in Philadelphia.

The Wachovia Center had been a house of horrors for the Penguins, who lost four times there during the season. They broke through Tuesday with a 4-1 win made possible by Pittsburgh’s defense as much as its high-powered offense.

No one could have imagined a team boasting Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Marian Hossa, would concentrate on playing a system based on forcing mistakes and protecting its end.

They even put the trap to good use. Pittsburgh cradled a 2-1 lead in the third period Tuesday before stretching it to a two-goal edge after a costly turnover by Flyers rookie Steve Downie.

Therrien might have been the biggest disbeliever in January 2006 when the Penguins were beaten by Edmonton for their eighth loss under his brief watch.

“It’s a pathetic performance,” he said then of his inherited club, that had allowed an NHL-worst 166 goals and got coach Eddie Olczyk fired. “Half of the team doesn’t care. ... They’re doing the best job to be the worst defensive squad in the league. They turn the puck over, they have no vision. The guys don’t care. They pretend to care, but I know they don’t.”

They surely do now.

“Defense wins championships,” said 6-foot-7 defenseman Hal Gill, brought in at this year’s trade deadline. “If we keep playing well defensively, we have the firepower and it’s going to be there.”

That style didn’t seem to take hold right away in 2006. The Penguins lost their next game, too — a 6-1 drubbing at Columbus. What looked like another poor performance appeared a whole lot brighter to Therrien.

“Sometimes you can’t judge a team with results,” Therrien said. “The next game, they looked like a team. They looked like they cared. Even if we lost that game ... that was the little light at the end of the tunnel. They showed a little bit more character. I remember that game like we just played yesterday. That was the first step to get where we are right now.”