The air was still hissing out of the Penguins' momentum when Capitals forward Brooks Laich offered a prediction for Game 7 tomorrow night at Verizon Center in Washington.

"It will be a one-goal game again, maybe overtime," said Laich, whose shot was deflected in by new and old linemate David Steckel in overtime for a 5-4 win in Game 6 last night at Mellon Arena.

Well, it wasn't the kind of bold prediction that included a winner. That would be difficult considering the flow of this second-round playoff series -- five games decided by one goal (the other by two), three in overtime.

It adds up to three wins apiece with a berth in the Eastern Conference final on the line tomorrow.

"They're going to be at their best, and it's going to be the most desperate game that we've seen all year," Laich said. "For us, it's going to be the same -- we're going to be in survival mode again."

One of Washington coach Bruce Boudreau's moves in that mode was to shuffle his lines after the first period, when the Capitals were being outshot, 17-5, but trailed only 1-0 primarily because of the play of rookie goaltender Simeon Varlamov.

"I felt OK, that we were in an OK position if we played better," Boudreau said.

Boudreau put Laich, Steckel and Matt Bradley, the club's energy line, back together after splitting them up the past couple of games.

"We weren't getting any offense, and I thought they could rekindle it," Boudreau said.

The teams traded leads -- Washington got two goals for a 2-1 lead, the Penguins scored twice to re-establish a one-goal lead, the Capitals answered with two more and Penguins center Sidney Crosby set up overtime when he scored at 15:42 of the third period.

Elimination and a chance to take the series back home were each successful shot away.

"We might not win, but we're going to go down fighting," Boudreau said of his team's resilience.

They didn't go down at all.

They stopped the Penguins' winning streak at three games on a play that started when Steckel beat Max Talbot on a faceoff at the right dot in the Penguins' end.

Laich came in to help make sure Washington got possession of the puck, which then wound up on Bradley's stick. Bradley got it to a retreating Laich at the point. His shot was deflected past goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury at 6:22 by Steckel, who had taken off to the net.

"It was a great battle off the draw," Steckel said. "Brooks came in and helped me out. Matt made a great play.

"We talked about it before we went out there -- get the puck to the net -- and we did just that."

It wasn't immediately evident to Laich that the Capitals had won.

"I didn't know that it went in right away, that Dave tipped it in, and all of a sudden the bench cleared," he said. "I rushed over and it was just a mob."

"I was just looking for the nearest guy to jump into his arms. It happened to be [defenseman] Tom Poti and, poor guy, I almost flattened him."

Steckel described the play as a lucky result of going where he was supposed to go.

"I didn't know where it went or anything," he said of the puck after he won the draw. "I just turned around and was trying to look for a rebound.

"That was the biggest goal of my career, so I didn't know what to do. I just started jumping around."

Over on the bench, Boudreau was doing his own form of celebration.

"Eight-inch vertical leap," he said. "It's getting higher. Each game that it gets more important, it gets a little higher."

This one was important.

Tomorrow game is exponentially more important.

"It's going to be a great game," said winger Alex Ovechkin, who had two assists, compared with a goal and assist for his counterpart, Crosby, in what has been the marquee matchup between up-and-coming clubs the NHL surely was hoping for between the teams.

"I think the league wants us to play Game 7, and we got it," Ovechkin said. "Right now we feel more energy and more excitement than Pittsburgh. They knew it was going to be hard to come back if they lost. Those fans [in Washington] are gong to be crazy there."