I think the answer to that question I asked in the title is a tried and true quote. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

I couldn’t even comment after the Penguins blew a sure win in New Jersey on January 30th because if I did I might have said something I would later regret. The next night, watching the defense and backup netminder Mathieu Garon cost the Penguins a victory I was even more furious. Then watching the team’s absolutely pathetic performance against Montreal on February 3rd I was ready to hurl something large through my nice flat screen television and uttered how my seventeen month old daughter understood the fundamentals of hockey better than the Penguins appeared to.

Then last night, for 40 minutes I watched a Penguins team that seemed to have just completely given up after first falling behind 1-0. Then they fell down 2-0. And finally it was 3-0. Against the Tampa Bay Lightning who are boasting a roster full of Pittsburgh Penguin rejects nonetheless!

But I will tell you what gave me hope that maybe, just maybe, this team might be ready to do something other than stink up the joint. Evgeni Malkin, who after last night’s game makes me believe that he might be more worthy of the Captain’s C than someone else currently wearing it, took the team on his back. He had some help from other players, but the third period was his period just like that third period against Detroit all those games ago was Jordan Staal’s.

This time it was Malkin’s turn to stand up apparently in the locker room and, down 3-0, proclaim to the team that everything was ok because he had the Lightning right where he wanted them.

2:25 into the third Malkin (23) scored to cut the score to 3-1. But it was not until 14:06, with time running down that the rest of the team chipped in as Mark Eaton (2) scored to trim the score to 3-2. Malkin was on the ice for that goal although he did not figure into it. Then it was Sykora (20) on the power play from Malkin that tied the game up at 16:31 to send the game to overtime.

In that frame it was Jordan Staal and Geno that worked hard 4 on 4 to get the puck out of the corner into the net. Malkin (24) had the game winner with 0:16 remaining.

The defense came around too after a terrible first period where they allowed 14 shots to allow only 5 in the second, 3 in the third and just two in the overtime.

The problem is Malkin cannot do this every night. The team needs to respond without being forced to do something by arguably the team’s best player. The team needs to come out and be a professional hockey team, finish checks, putting pucks on net and doing all the little things they are paid to do from the opening drop to the final horn. And I do not honestly know that I have seen that sort of professionalism and determination in this team yet or ever will this season.

Sure they won. But they beat Tampa Bay. A team that is worse than the Pens are right now. Many of the teams ahead of them in the standings have games in hand on Pittsburgh and that just makes the chances of another Stanley Cup Playoff appearance that much more remote with a team that is winning at only a 40% clip since the All-Star Break.

Some people say that things will get better once Gonchar gets on the ice for a game. I say if Gonchar is all this team needs to start winning then that doesn’t say very much about the caliber of this team that one man can turn them into a winner from a looser. They had better start winning before Gonchar’s return to prove they are worth having another shot at the big prize.