PENGUINS BUILT FOR THREE-PEAT

They were far from perfect, but won it all; could they come back stronger next year?

It was a half-hour after the Pittsburgh Penguins had won their second consecutive Stanley Cup and the general manager of the team — the man who hired the head coach, who last year brought in Phil Kessel and this year traded for Ron Hainsey, while refusing to trade MarcAndre Fleury — couldn’t stop smiling.

They told Jim Rutherford this couldn’t be done.

“People said at the start of the year and all through the year that it’s hard to repeat,” Rutherford said. “But we always said, ‘Nobody said that you can’t.’ And our guys were determined. We kept the same group together. They knew how to win these big games. They came in here and won this game. They know how to step up. It was a gutsy, determined group of guys.”

The club was without injured Kris Letang for the entire playoffs, had a threadbare defence and seemed to be running on empty after having played more hockey than any other team in the last 24 months.

“I think this one was harder than last year,” Rutherford said. “Yeah, especially with the pressure on us and with how many guys we had playing hurt. It was certainly more stressful for me this time around. I haven’t been breathing that good for the last two months, but now I can breathe.”

But Rutherford won’t rest. He said he’d love to do what no team has done since the New York Islanders in the early 1980s — win a third straight title.

Here are five reasons why the Penguins could pull off the rare three-peat:

1 Sid and Geno

First there was Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr. Now it’s Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.

If it wasn’t enough that the Penguins had the best player in the world, they have another who some might consider to be the second best. Certainly, that is how it looked in the playoffs.

Malkin led the post-season with 28 points, while Crosby, who won his second straight Conn Smythe Trophy, was second with 27. There was only one game where both were held off the scoresheet.

“They’re two players of a very select few in the league that single-handedly have an ability to change the outcomes of games,” Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan said. “That’s how good they are, but I do believe that just in my time in Pittsburgh with them, I think they’re appreciative of one another.”

2 Kris Letang

Somehow, some way, the Penguins won a Stanley Cup without a No. 1 defenceman. The way they spread out the minutes was reminiscent of the 2006 Carolina Hurricanes, a team that had Rutherford as the GM.

“When Letang went out, I said to our guys, ‘Don’t worry. We can do this,’ ” Rutherford said. “You’ve got to get the guys playing the right amount of minutes. You have to have them playing within themselves.”

Letang, who had surgery for a herniated disc in his neck before the playoffs began, will be back for next season. With a true No. 1 defenceman in the lineup, Pittsburgh’s one weakness will become a definite strength again.

3 Jake Guentzel

No one knew much about the curly haired Nebraskan rookie when the playoffs started. But after he led the post-season with 13 goals, including five gamewinners, Guentzel was in the running as Pittsburgh’s MVP. The question now is whether it was a flash-in-the-pan performance or the start of something special.

There are signs that it could be the latter. While Guentzel benefited from playing on a line with Crosby, he did score 21 goals and 42 points in 33 games as a rookie this year in the minors.

4 Money is no matter

Nothing splits up a potential dynasty more than the salary cap, but the Penguins are in decent shape.

Chris Kunitz (US$3.85 million), Nick Bonino (US$1.9 million) and Matt Cullen (US$1 million) are unrestricted free agents, as are defencemen Trevor Daley (US$3.3 million) and Ron Hainsey (US$2.83 million). But the bulk of Pittsburgh’s roster, including Crosby, Malkin and Letang, will return next year.

If the Penguins trade goalie Marc-Andre Fleury or lose him to the expansion draft, they will have an additional US$5.75 million to play with. The team has to re-sign restricted free agents Conor Sheary and Justin Schultz and find a couple of depth centres, but they should have enough money left to sign a second-pairing defenceman such as Kevin Shattenkirk or Karl Alzner.

5 Matt Murray

It’s hard to imagine the Penguins would have won the Cup — or even advanced past the first round — had Rutherford traded Fleury at the deadline. But while Fleury stepped in while Matt Murray was recovering from an injury, it was once again Murray who pushed a team that was routinely outshot and out-chanced over the hump.

“He was in a zone the last two games,” Rutherford said. “When he’s like that, you can’t score on him.”