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CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP Carl Soderberg Jersey , Pa. (AP) Sidney Crosby has faced the Washington Capitals three times in the playoffs. All three times the Pittsburgh captain has led his team to victory. And all three times the Penguins used the win as the springboard to a raucous mid-June parade with the Stanley Cup in tow.Still, Crosby sounded like a cautious investor on Tuesday when asked if Pittsburgh has a mental advantage over rival Alexander Ovechkin and the Capitals heading into yet another postseason showdown in the Eastern Conference semifinals starting later this week.Past performance, the two-time MVP stressed, does not guarantee future results.”I think it depends on what you do in the series and how you play,” Crosby said. ”I don’t think it plays a huge role. I guess to answer your question, no.”A mantra Crosby’s teammates repeated over and over they prepared for yet another showdown in a rivalry that somehow manages to be both compelling and one-sided. Pittsburgh is 9-1 all-time in the postseason against Washington regardless of who is in the black-and-gold sweaters and who is in red, white and blue.Not that Ovechkin is intimidated. The Capitals star said he “can’t wait” to get another shot at the Penguins after spearheading Washington’s first-round win over Columbus in six games. That’s fine by Pittsburgh, which has played Lucy to Washington’s Charlie Brown for more than a quarter century, dangling a potentially deep playoff run in front of the Capitals only to pull it back at the last minute.The Penguins, however, remain wary. Just because they always beat Washington doesn’t mean they’re going to always beat Washington. The teams split their four meetings during the regular season, with the Capitals wrapping up their third straight Metropolitan Division title with a 3-1 win in Pittsburgh on April Fool’s Day.Of course Gabriel Landeskog Jersey Kids , none of it matters once the puck drops in Game 1.”It’s a new year,” Pittsburgh defenseman Kris Letang said. ”The series is going to play out differently. The game is going to be won differently. You don’t know how it is going to go. The only thing I know is it’s a good rivalry, two really good teams, two teams that have a lot of punch offensively. It’s going to be fun to be a part of.”Particularly for Letang. He missed all of Pittsburgh’s run to a second straight Stanley Cup last spring while recovering from neck surgery, though he was able to make his way to the arena for Game 7 of the conference semifinals, when Marc-Andre Fleury stopped all 29 shots he faced and the Penguins escaped with a 2-0 victory to finish a series in which both teams scored 20 goals and won on opposing ice at least twice.Though there are a handful of new faces on both sides, the principals remain the same. Ovechkin and Crosby. Evgeni Malkin and Nicklas Backstrom. Letang and Braden Holtby. Two weeks of taut, tense hockey in the offing.”I think it’s the same old dangerous team,” Letang said. ”Like, don’t get me wrong, those series went the distance, they went to overtime. It was a tough matchup that could have gone either way. They cause the same problems to our team. They cause problems on the power play. They have a lot of skill. They make a lot of plays.”Yet the Penguins have always found a way to make at least one more http://www.officialavalanche.com/authentic-adidas-j.t.-compher-jersey , though they may be at less than 100 percent when things get going. Malkin and forward Carl Hagelin both missed practice on Tuesday. Malkin is dealing with a lower-body injury while Hagelin has an upper-body issue after colliding with Philadelphia’s Claude Giroux in Pittsburgh’s clinching victory over the Flyers in Game 6.That could provide more playing time for players like Riley Sheahan – who filled in capably on the second line for Malkin in Game 6 – and rookie Zach Aston-Reese. The 23-year-old was in high school the first time Crosby and Ovechkin met in the playoffs in 2009 – when the Penguins blitzed the Capitals in Game 7 of the conference semifinals on their way to the Cup.This time, Aston-Reese’s view will be markedly different. He noticed an uptick in intensity from the regular season when the Penguins fended off the Flyers. Now, the dial goes up to 11 and stays there.”I expect every game to be almost like a Game 7,” Aston-Reese said.That’s because it almost always is.— WASHINGTON — It will be a Stanley Cup Finals rematch when the Vegas Golden Knights visit the Washington Capitals on Wednesday night.The Capitals defeated the Knights in five games last spring to win their first-ever Cup and end the expansion Knights’ Cinderella season.It’s too early to call this year a sophomore slump, but the Knights have wobbled out of the gate 1-2. Vegas lost 4-2 to the Baffalo Sabres on Monday night in the second stop of a five-game road trip despite outshooting the Sabres 37-17.Article continues below ...“Too many (Grade A chances) obviously,” Knights forward Max Pacioretty told NHL.com. “You know, we limited them to a low number of shots, however, the shots that they did get were Grade A opportunities. We can’t leave our goaltender out to dry like that.”Jonathan Marchessault had a goal and an assist for the Knights.Vegas, which is 0 of 8 on the power play thus far, didn’t pick up its second loss until the 10th game of last season and now faces back-to-backs against the Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins.“They’re the Stanley Cup champs,” Golden Knights coach Gerard Gallant said of the Capitals. “We look at this game (Wednesday) night Youth Matt Nieto Jersey , it’s a big challenge for our group so we’ll get ready to play them. We know them, they know us real well, so hopefully it’ll be a good game and we’d like to come out on top.”Washington (1-0-1) comes into the game well rested, with five days off since dropping a 7-6 overtime decision to the Pittsburgh Penguins after blanking the Boston Bruins 7-0 on opening night.While Gallant somewhat downplayed the rematch in terms of its meaning beyond two points in the standings, new Capitals coach Todd Reirden expects an intense affair.“Obviously, through a five-game series you develop a little bit of hatred for certain guys, so it’s always nice to get back in to that sort of rivalry that we’ve developed with them,” he said. “I think it’ll be good for our team — especially after five days — to help us get right into the game and know it’s going to be a competitive situation with a real hungry team that’s looking to knock us off.”Reirden will have two additions to his lineup Wednesday night.Defenseman Michal Kempny, who missed the first two games with a concussion, is set to return and be paired with John Carlson.“I never had a concussion before, so I didn’t know what to expect,” Kempny said. “Some headaches Mikko Rantanen Jersey , and it was something a little bit weird, but then I felt a better and better every day.”Forward Dmitrij Jaskin, who was claimed on waivers from the St. Louis Blues just before the season began, will make his Washington debut skating on the fourth line with center Nic Dowd and Devante Smith-Pelly.For the Knights, forward Cody Eakin, who has been out with a lower body injury, could return. He provided 11 goals and 16 assists in 80 games last season.Capitals goalie Braden Holtby pitched a shutout opening night before surrendering seven goals against the Penguins. Holtby allowed eight goals versus the Knights in the final four games of last spring’s finals as Washington rallied from a 1-0 deficit.Marc-Andre Fleury has a 3.93 goals-against average in two-plus games this season. He surrendered four goals per game to Washington in the Cup finals.