Championship To Pittsburgh

It's been a few years for the Steel City since they've seen a title. In fact, the last title for the city, was the Penguins in 2009. It's been a long, very interesting year for the Penguins to reach this point in time right now. They were a team that was floundering at Christmas, they were an average team at best. Then Mike Sullivan comes in and takes over as head coach of this team. Some players get call ups from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. The team finally clicked, took off during the second half of the year and went 33–16–5 down the stretch. They went rolling right into the playoffs. They rolled passed the Rangers, had a few bumps in the road against the Capitals and Lightning. Then got to the finals, dominating the Sharks. Pittsburgh capped the season off with a 3-1 triumph in game six, taking home the fourth Stanley Cup in Franchise history.

One of the overriding themes of this series was the fact that the Pens had used their footspeed. Pittsburgh was faster than San Jose all series long, thus leading to them outshooting and outplaying San Jose from start to finish. Same thing happened in game six. In the opening frame, Pittsbugh had a 9-4 shots advantage and got the only goal of that period. It came on a powerplay. Dainius Zubrus went off for tripping at the 7:50 mark. It took only 16 seconds for the Penguins best weapon to go to work. Justin Schultz fed the puck back to the point. Brian Dumoulin made a great fake on his first shot, took his second one and it found the back of the net. It came at the 8:16 mark of the 1st and it was his 2nd goal of the playoffs. San Jose had a few opportunities in that opening period, but nothing found the back of the net. San Jose's best chance came when Joel Ward had a break away with 7:20 left in the frame, but he couldn't get the shot off because of a diving stop by Chris Kunitz.

San Jose went into the 2nd period and they finally decided to show up. They managed to fire 13 shots on net, outshooting the Penguins 13-11. Pittsburgh had a great chance about a minute into the middle frame, when Nick Bonino was left alone in front but Martin Jones managed to make another unreal kick save on him (as he did the same thing to him in game five the other night). That save kept the Sharks afloat. San Jose would eventually cash in and bury one past Matt Murray. It came at the 6:27 mark of the period. Brent Burns flagged down a high pass and brought it over the line. He then sent a cross ice pass to Logan Couture who got to the top of the circle and ripped a shot past Matt Murray. The goal was the 10th of the playoffs (and 30th point) for Couture in the post season. Those 30 points shattered the old record for most points in the playoffs by a Sharks player (old record was 18 points by Igor Larionov in 1994). There was more energy and jump in the building that was provided by that Couture goal. It didn't last long however. It took just 79 seconds after the Couture goal for this to happen:



Kris Letang took the feed from Crosby and buried it short side for his third of the playoffs. It would be the game winner. As a matter of fact, Letang had a hand in every Penguins game winning goal in this series. He set up Bonino for the winner in game one, then set up Conor Sheary for the overtime winner in game two, had the secondary assist on Evgeni Malkin's game winner in game four, and finally scored the cup clincher in game six. The only other goal that was scored in this hockey game was by Patric Hornqvist, who buried his 9th of the playoffs into an empty net with 1:02 to go to seal the championship.

Before we get more into the Penguins taking the title, how about the no-show from the Sharks. I mean think about it. They had plenty of chances in the 2nd period of this game, but only managed to get one puck passed Murray. As the 2nd period moved along, San Jose spent so much time trying to get an open look that they weren't getting an shots off on goal. It was mind boggeling that they couldn't get the puck in the general direction of the net. To make this even more maddening, San Jose had just two shots in the 3rd period. TWO SHOTS ON GOAL IN THE 3RD PERIOD. Its the Stanley Cup Finals, that can't happen at all. Shame on San Jose for not showing up and getting that badly outplayed. It was a fantastic run by the Sharks, making it to the finals for the first time in the 25 year history of the franchise. It was a great run that came up just short. For head coach Peter DeBour, it means a lot. It seems like every time he gets into the playoffs, it means a trip to the finals. It happened in 2012 with the Devils, and now this year with San Jose. Hats off to the Sharks for a great year.

Now back to the Penguins winning the championship. Sidney Crosby was named the Conn Smythe trophy winner as MVP of the Playoffs. Crosby finished with 19 points in six goals and thirteen assists in 24 games played. HE had a fantastic all around game, I will give him that, but at the same time I don't think it should have gone to Crosby. It should have gone to Phil Kessel, who had a way better playoff year then Crosby did, and lets face facts, Kessel was a bigger reason why the Penguins won the cup then Crosby did. Crosby became the 10th player in NHL history, and third Penguin, to win both the Hart Memorial Trophy and Conn Smythe Trophy. The rest of the list, a pretty exclusive list at that, includes Jean Beliveau, Wayne Gretzky, Guy Lafleur, Mario Lemieux, Evgeni Malkin, Mark Messier, Bobby Orr, Joe Sakic, and Bryan Trottier. Sidney now joins Joe Sakic as the only to guys in hockey history to win a World Junior Championship, World Championship, Olympic Medal, Stanley Cup, Conn Smyth Trophy and Hart Trophy as league MVP.

For the Penguins, this marks the 4th Stanley Cup Championship in their history. Those Stanley Cup Titles were won on May 25th 1991 (In Minnesota, won in six), June 1st 1992 (In Chicago, they swept), June 12th, 2009 (In Detroit, won in seven) and June 12th 2016 (In San Jose, won in six). Congratulations to the Pittsburgh Penguins, your 2016 Stanley Cup Champions!