– Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press writes that it’s no longer last year anymore as the Penguins’ stars are starting to shine and take over this series.

– Ron Cook of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette boastfully claims that Detroit can’t win without Pavel Datsyuk, who has yet to play in the Cup Finals.

– The Detroit Free Press writes that the Wings played out of character in their Game 4 loss.

– Gene Collier of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette waxes poetically about Jordan Staal, who he says saved the day in Game 4.

– SI.com writes about the Penguins’ second period burst.

With their 4-2 victory over the Red Wings on Tuesday night, the Penguins have cut into Detroit’s lead in the Stanley Cup Finals and now have the chance to tie the series at two games apiece when the series continues on Thursday in Pittsburgh.

Here is what local columnist and beat writers are saying about the Pens’ victory:

– Michael Rosenberg of the Detroit Free Press writes that even though they lost, the Wings look like more of a lock than when the series started.

– Ron Cook of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says that the Penguins have new life after soundly beating Detroit in Game 3.

– Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press writes that if the Wings can’t kill penalties, then they won’t be able to put the Penguins away.

– Michael Farber of SI.com writes that the Penguins’ wounded warrior Sergei Gonchar, who hurt his knee when Alexander Ovechkin of the Capitals knocked into him in Game 4 of Pittsburgh’s series with Washington, delivered when his team needed him the most.

– Scott Burnside of ESPN.com writes that Game 3’s defining moment was when Matt Cooke drew a penalty that lead to the Pens’ winning goal.

Thanks to a 2-1 victory in overtime against the Blackhawks on Wednesday night, the Red Wings have set up a rematch with the Penguins in the Stanley Cup Finals.

Detroit won the Western Conference finals 4-1. The Red Wings and Penguins, coming off a four-game sweep over Carolina in the East, will open the championship series Saturday night in Detroit.

The series will start nearly a week ahead of schedule because NBC and the NHL didn’t want a long layoff to stunt the excitement about the matchup.

I think plenty of casual hockey fans wanted to see some new blood in the Finals, but it’s hard to beat a matchup between Sidney Crosby and the red hot Penguins vs. the defending champs. This will also be the first rematch of the Stanley Cup finals since the Islanders and Oilers battled each other in back to back years in 1983 and 1984.

The 21-year old Crosby draws a lot of comparisons to the “Great One” Wayne Gretzky and legend Mario Lemieux, but even he’ll admit that until he wins a cup, people will always question the legitimacy of those comparisons. A Cup victory over the powerful Wings would go a long way in helping Sid Kid gain even more backers.

It’ll be interesting to see if the Wings get Nicklas Lindstrom and Pavel Datsyuk back on Saturday. Both players were scratched from Wednesday night’s game after expecting to play. Hopefully Detroit will be at full strength come Saturday, because this series should be a battle.

Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals and Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins are currently playing to the best of their abilities in a matchup hockey buffs have dreamed about. Problem is, not many people are aware of it and if they are, they’ll have trouble finding the games as they are on the Versus network.

It’s a once-in-a-decade duel — the kind of rare treat that somehow exceeds the hype. So tonight, tune into channel 603, and catch the last game of an instant classic.

That’s right: channel 603, square in television’s Yukon Territory. Since the hockey playoffs are on Versus, formerly known as the Outdoor Life Network, viewers in many markets will have to search the hinterland of channel listings in order to watch the games. Versus is channel 603 on DirectTV, and its placement isn’t pretty on cable, either. On Time Warner Cable’s Los Angeles system, it’s channel 267; in New York, Cablevision puts Versus on channel 146; and in Dallas, Versus gets prime position on channel 254. Of the nation’s 115 million television households, some 40 million do not even get Versus.

The series is drawing a smaller audience than last year’s College Baseball World Series, on ESPN, when it averaged 1.4 million viewers. On May 8, only 647,000 viewers tuned into Game 4 of Penguins-Capitals, making it the 81st highest-rated program on cable that night. The Crosby-Ovechkin dream duel clocked in behind both a Batman episode on the Cartoon Network (1.5 million viewers), and a “Reba” rerun on Lifetime (930,000). The Los Angeles Lakers-Houston Rockets NBA playoff game on ESPN, with nearly 6 million viewers, came in first. The May 9 NASCAR Sprint Cup race, a regular season affair, drew 7.5 times more viewers than Game 5 — an overtime thriller — shown the same night on Versus.

I remember when I was completely out of the hockey loop last year. I knew that the playoffs were on and but I didn’t have much interest in watching. Then one day I literally got lost in the hundreds of channels that we received and somehow landed on this station called Versus. Turns out, the Sharks vs. Stars series was on and I stuck around. I had never heard of the network. Even in all the sports reading I did and in watching other sports, I never saw an advertisement for Versus.

I know what channel the network is on now, of course. It’s just a shame really since these playoffs have actually been fairly exciting. I’m not sure how much of a financial success the NHL was this year but I’m sure it didn’t do horrible. Regardless, here’s hoping Versus puts more money into their public relations department as Crosby and Ovechkin are reasons enough to watch.