Players, fans fine-tuning
Stanley Cup Final begins with Penguins win
J.B. Ashburn didn’t hesitate to say he was a little emotional at the approach of the Stanley Cup Final, and not because he was suddenly back out on Fifth Avenue after having failed to smuggle a large Silver Bullet into Game 1. Never mind it wasn’t an actual ballistic projectile — it was a fairly harmless cylinder of Coors Light — the visiting Nashville Predators fan was surprised that he could not walk that brew right through the gate.
Had he only thought to disguise it asa catfish, because an honest-to-God catfish turned up on the ice in thesecond period, and you can’t wait to hear exactly how the hockey analytics people will explain that.
But J.B. isn’t really an accomplished smuggler, as he was carrying his beer right out in front of his visiting white Predators jersey, as prominent as the choppers on the saber-toothed cat that adorns it.
His emotions were tied to the full weight of the moment, not so much that he’d traveled from Tennessee to take in the NHL’s greatest spectacle, but that others hadn’t, and one in particular.
“It’s emotional because it’s our very first finals game,” said Ashburn, a utilities specialist for Dollar General, which has its headquarters in Nashville. “We’ve had a team since ’98, and I’ve been to a lot of games, a lot of games with people who aren’t even here anymore.
“Like my dad. He passed away about 10 years ago. We went to a lot of games together, and I know he would eat this up. He took me to my first Predators game, a game against Chicago, on my birthday, Nov. 16, 1998.”
So as the championship series began Monday night, players and fans alike were still fine-tuning their various emotional protocols, with hiccups large, small, and perhaps literal to be expected when two teams that have never met in a playoff series collide over possession of the oldest trophy in team sports.
Still wrung out from a holiday weekend that piggybacked a brain-bending Game 7 in the Eastern Conference final against Ottawa, the Penguins crowd that first gathered near the outdoor video screen and spilled toward another at about 7 o’clock seemed almost sedate. The bar crowd bulged onto the sidewalks but the black-and-gold throngs were relative quiet, and the guy with the homeless disabled vet sign, the dog and the cell phone across the street was drawing little interest.
Inside, at the approach of game time, you couldn’t help but revisit some imagery from the previous Penguins show, like the puck spinning to a stop, dead still on the blue paint in front of the Penguins net in overtime, like the last donut on a blue plate at a late-night diner, then the sound that happens with 18,000 people gasp simultaneously, until Ottawa’s Kyle Turris kicked it away, briefly postponing the Chris Kunitz goal that sent Pittsburgh to its sixth Final at the approach of midnight. Yeah, that. Somehow the first period of the fourth round wasn’t quite so delectable, particularly when it appeared head coach Mike Sullivan had made it an optional skate for his forecheckers. The Penguins got nothing established in the offensive for most of the first period, then got a three-goal lead in the space of barely four minutes.
Something was fishy, all right.
As it happened, a threegoal lead after one period wasn’t too far from what Ashburn had imagined this would be like.
“It’s almost like the Rocky story to me,” said the 34year-old on his first visit to Pittsburgh. “It’s the defending champ against the guy nobody thought would be here. It’s kind of exciting.”
The Predators were essentially the 16th and last qualifier for this monthslong tournament, snagging the Western Conference’s second wild-card invite by the skin of their saber teeth. But that’s not even an anomaly in the modern NHL, where at least one team seeded outside the league’s top 10 has reached the finals eight times now in the past 15 seasons.
I barely had the heart to inform the young man that the Predators are at a distinct disadvantage that won’t show up on any meaningful analysis, namely the quasi-official notion that you can’t win the Stanley Cup dressed the way Predators do at home, in a canary yellow get-up that strains both optics and credibility.
“Yeah, that’s kind of a thing,” he had to admit. “It took me awhile to get the yellow jersey, to have that grow on me. But after a couple of years it was like, ‘ya know, that thing really pops.’ ” No. It flops. Much like the Penguins nearly did Monday night, whistling away a 3-0 lead with 37 shot-free minutes, then scoring twice in the final 3:17 to win 5-3.
Game 2 comes Wednesday night. You can assume catfish scanners will be in place.