I am sitting here watching the Memorial Cup playoffs from the QMJHL, Rimouski v Drummondville, a great game finally won by Drummondville in OT. Watching it, and impatiently biding my time until game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals, I began to think of all of the exciting moments we have had the pleasure of seeing in the past 12 months as Penguins fans.
Before we even talk at all about the specifics of the past two seasons full of excitement, lets talk generally about the Pens. We are privileged to watch two of the very best hockey players in the world on the Pens in Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, much like we were treated to watching Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr drive the Pens to two Stanley Cups in the 90's. Like the 90's teams with supporting cast of stars such as Ron Francis, Rick Tocchet, Kevin Stevens and Larry Murphy, this Pens team has Sergei Gonchar, Jordan Staal, Marc Andre Fleury, and Bill Guerin.
Now more specifically, the past 13 months have brought Pens fans the following starting with the 07-08 playoff run:
That Pens team finished 2nd in the Eastern Conference during the regular season, winning the Atlantic Division. They also made the blockbuster deal of the year to bring in Marion Hossa, while trading lots of young talent to get him. As part of that regular season, we saw this team overcome the loss of Sidney Crosby for much of the second half of the season, leading many to predict the demise of the Pens! Instead, we saw the character of this team as it surged past everybody in the division to earn the second seed in the conference, and Evgeni Malkin put the team on his shoulders.....he finished second in the league in scoring.
In the playoffs, the Pens were magic. They swept the Senators in 4 games to avenge the playoff loss from the year before in stunning fashion, then eliminated a New York Rangers team that many predicted would go to the finals in 5 games. Two things stand out to me from this series.......First in Game one, the Rangers came out and took a very dominating 3-0 lead, and things looked GRIM for the Pens.....instead of quitting, the Pens roared back to win that game in regulation, and really never looked back in the series. The elimination game was another testatment to their character. The Pens blew a 2-0 lead in the third period as NYR scored two quick goals to tie it. The Pens did their thing in OT as Marion Hossa blew a puck past Henrik Lundqvist to put the Pens in the Conference Finals against bitter long time rivals, the Philadelphia Flyers. The Penguins barely missed a beat, and took out a very good Flyers team in 5 games, brutalizing them in game 5 by a score of 6-0 to make their first appearance in the Stanley Cup Finals in 16 years v the "unbeatable" Red Wings. In the first two games, it seemed as if the Pens youth and playoff inexperience caught up with them, as the Pens lost the first two games of the series in very convincing fashion. The Pens played the Wings dead even for the next four games, and made it a very competitive series before succumbing in six games........Who will ever forget the magic of Game 5, when the Detroit crowd was getting ready for the SC celebration on home ice, the cup was brought up in preparation for the celebration, and MAD MAX Talbot spoiled the party by tying the game with about half a minute left! Marc Andre Fleury then played an unreal sequence of nearly 3 OT periods of stoning the Wings before Petr Sykora did his Babe Ruth imitation and scored the game winner he called to extend the seriest to six games! That sixth game came within two inches of a second OT classic as the game tying goal slid in tantalizing fashion right past the goal line..........we had to endure the Wings celebrating their championship on home ice, but it left an indelible impression as to what may lie ahead for this team!
Summer 08-Many experts stated the Pens 08-09 season was set up for disaster due to the departure of Hossa, Roberts, Malone, Hall, Laraque, and Conklin. As if that were not enough there were all kinds of crazy stats on the failures of Stanley Cup runners up in the following season due to SC hangover and an extended prior season. After making the "experts" seem like geniuses by playing themselves into 10th place in the conference by mid February, this team fires a coach who had taken them to the Finals the year before, replace him with a coach who not only had never coached in the NHL, but only coached half a season in WBS the Pens AHL affiliate!! They were surely dead, right?? WRONG, this team made a couple of trades to bring in a rugged winger in Chris Kunitz, a proven veteran sniper in Bill Guerin, and took Craig Adams as a much needed faceoff man and penalty killer off WAIVERS from Chicago. The Pens then rattled off a 19-3-3 stretch run to take them from 10th to 4th in the conference and home ice advantage in Round One of the playoffs!!!!!!!! As part of that magical run, we got to watch Evgeni Malkin win the Art Ross trophy as the NHL scoring leader with 113 points and Sidney Crosby catch fire to finish third in the league in scoring with 103 points despite a somewhat slow start by his standards........ Now the 2009 playoffs and the memories already created:
In general, can the party atmosphere inside and outside the arena between the sold out crowds, AND the thousands watching on the big screen be beaten?
Round One, we draw the Flyers again, a very strong team, more healthy for this playoff series and primed to avenge the elimination they suffered at the hands of the Pens in the previous season..........Again, the Pens had too much for the cross state rivals, defeating them in six games, and again creating some classic Penguins playoff moments. After winning Game One in convincing fashion, the Pens were taken to OT in Game 2. A win here by the Flyers, and the series is tied and they steal home ice......instead an OT goal by Bill Guerin gave the Pens a strong lead in the series. After the Pens lost two of the next three games, the Flyers seemed to have momentum and threatened to steal the series. In game 6, the Pens fell behind 3-0 in the game and seemed destined to be forced into a 7th game with the Flyers......again, the character of this team showed. Mad Max Talbot decided to beat Daniel Carcillos fists with his face in an effort to turn the momentum.......as I watched the Flyers fans go nuts and the Wachovia Center come alive, I truly thought the plan had backfired........I still had to laugh as Max shooshed the Flyers crowd on his way to the penalty box. I would have NEVER imagined that the Pens were about to reel off 5 unanswered goals to again send the Flyers to the golf course in front of their frenzied fans! Given their treatment of Crosby, it was very sweet to watch them have to watch the handshake line in their building. The Pens reward for this win was to draw a red hot Caps team led by the player many experts believed to be the best in the NHL Alex Ovechkin. The Caps promptly won the first two games and the talking heads were already anointing the Caps as the Beast of the East and Ovechkin as the king of the NHL. Despite the two losses, the first games were gems, very tight, several lead changes and game two had hat tricks from both Ovechkin and Crosby.......something you almost NEVER see. Despite that, the Pens were dead right???? Wrong! The Pens won the next three games to take a 3-2 lead in the series! Two of those wins came in OT on goals by Letang in Game 3 and Malkin in Game 5! Every game was a one goal game, and Ovechkin and Crosby traded goals like two heavyweights trading punches..............The Caps returned the favor by beating the Pens in OT at Mellon Arena, to force a Game 7 back in DC. Three of the last four games in the series decided in OT, it does not get any better than that!! The experts again figured the momentum from Game 6 and home ice advantage for Game 7 made the Capitals the favorites to take this series and advance to the conference finals...........Wrong again, as the Pens stormed out to a 4-0 lead and ultimately won 6-2 in a game that was never competitive after Fleury stoned Ovechkin on an early breakaway! Even better, Sid had two goals, including a breakaway in front of the only crowd that is worse with him than the Philly crowd.....they sat in stunned silence as the Pens reeled off the first four goals, and the Pens advanced to the Conference Finals for the second straight year! During this series we saw four OT games, three won by the 'guins, and we saw a series in which the top 3 playoff scorers, (1) Sid, (2)OC, (3)Geno lit the lamp in stunning fashion. To put Sid and Genos scoring pace in perspective consider this; Crosby and Pavel Datsyuk tied for the NHL playoff scoring race last year with 26 points each after 4 full playoff series. At the end of two series this year Crosby and Malkin had 21 and 19 points respectively. At that pace, they would shatter last years playoff leading numbers with 42 points for Sid and 38 for Geno! We also saw the look of a gun fighter in Sids eyes, as he asserted himself as the best player in the NHL in front of the hockey world! His performance in the second round was stunning in every way. He would not let this team fail, as he matched Ovechkin point for point AND goal for goal, while outplaying him defensively and cashing in directly on a few of Ovechkins turnovers! Most of the "experts" have the Pens and Wings on a collision course for a championship rematch in June, but that is premature. Those same experts will give the Pens little chance of defeating the Wings. Regardless the Pens still have no small matter in dealing with the Carolina Hurricanes ahead of them. The Canes are quite capable of spoiling the party, so we need to take care of that business before we think of the Wings. I will say this.......the chance to potentially beat the Wings and Marion Hossa who left the Pens to go to the team "with the best chance to win the Cup," is about as tantalizing to me as a sporting situaion could be. That said, this team has given us all more thrills and memorable moments over the past year than any reasonable fan could ever ask for....(throw in the Steelers win in Super Bowl 43 and it is pretty good to be a PGH fan right now).......think about just the moments listed above, I am sure I missed some, and savor this team! They are a unique, tough, wildly skilled, gritty team that will be a tough out for anybody. Maybe, just maybe, this season of "unfinished business" will end as the season with the "mission accomplished".... but for now focus on the next step by taking care of the Canes......either way, this team is truly special, and we are privileged to be a part of this!
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