A RARE OPPORTUNITY
Penguins hungry to repeat
The pep talk happened during a blowout loss.
At the time, it might have been a hard sell. Down 2-1 in the Eastern Conference final, the Pittsburgh Penguins spoke about the dangers of blowing an opportunity to reach the Stanley Cup final for a second straight year.
Get hungry, the players said. This chance doesn’t come around often.
Except, for some of the Penguins, it has happened often. It has happened every single year, in fact.
Matt Murray, who is technically a rookie, is playing in his second Stanley Cup final. The same goes for second-year Penguins Conor Sheary, Bryan Rust and Tom Kuhnhackl, and Brian Dumoulin, while Jake Guentzel and Scott Wilson have gone all the way in their first full season.
But as Ron Hainsey can attest, having waited 907 games before playing in his first Cup final, it’s not something you can take for granted.
“You never know when you’ll be back here again,” said Nick Bonino, who joined the Pens last season and played a major role in their Stanley Cup run. “Just with free agency, the expansion draft, you never know what teams are going to look like next year or in the future of your career. It’s not something that comes around every year. You look at Ron Hainsey, he’s played a lot without being here.”
As for whether winning last year satiated their appetite for another Cup, the Penguins were universal in that they are hungrier than ever.
“We know what an opportunity it is to do it back-to-back,” said Phil Kessel. “It’s a special thing. For a lot of us, we might not get that chance to play for it again or get this far. It’s tough to get here, so whenever you get a chance, you have to take advantage of it.”
Predators captain Mike Fisher is expected to be in the lineup for Monday’s Game 1 after missing the last two games of the Western Conference final with an unspecified injury.
Pittsburgh’s Patric Hornqvist, who missed the last six games with an upper-body injury, is also hoping he will be healthy enough to return for Game 1. But when the Penguins winger eventually gets in the lineup, don’t expect him to focus on Nashville Predators forward James Neal.
While the two players were traded for one another four years ago, the connection is ancient history.
“I’m not worried about that,” said Hornqvist. “That’s probably the first few years you always check his stats and all that. After that, it dries out.”
Big name against no name is how some are referring to the matchup between Nashville and Pittsburgh’s respective defence.
While the Predators have relied on Roman Josi, P.K. Subban, Ryan Ellis and Mattias Ekholm for the bulk of the minutes, with Kris Letang out the Penguins’ approach is more by committee.
“Not one of us is going to replace Kris. He’s that good,” said Justin Schultz, who leads Pittsburgh defencemen with 10 points.