Dreams made of this Or is it nightmares? Either way, Penguins, not just newcomers, know drill
As Nick Bjugstad and Jared McCann power-walked into PPG Paints Arena about 10 minutes before the puck dropped Friday then frantically laced up their skates and strapped on pads, both thought it felt like a dream.
That’s because it was a lot like recurring ones they have had before. “You show up late to the game, and it’s usually a big game, whether it is college, high school or the pros,” said Bjugstad, who has a version of this dream every few months. “And I usually forget a piece of equipment or I can’t find a way to get out onto the ice and I’m late to the game.
“It’s obviously a nightmare. At least, I consider it a nightmare.”
A few of his new Penguins teammates nodded their heads Monday when told about how Bjugstad wakes up in a panic, afraid he has missed a game. A straw poll of 10 players found that half have had similar dreams.
“That’s a pretty common one. Everyone’s calling you, that kind of thing. I’ve had countless nightmares like that,” Casey DeSmith said. “You look at your phone and you have a million missed calls. And you check your texts, and they’re like, ‘Where are you? You’re missing the game.’”
The goalie has had that dream at least once this season. Usually, when he arrives inside the arena, the game is already over. And then he wakes up.
Teddy Blueger, the rookie who has two goals in his first three NHL games, often dreams he opens his equipment bag in the locker room and realizes he forgot, say, his skates. So he has to race home to retrieve them.
“The game is starting, so you’re like panicking,” Blueger said. “And then you wake up and say, ‘Thank God it’s only a dream.’ It’s kind of crazy how many guys I’ve talked to who have had that dream before.”
And then there is Bryan Rust, whose hilariously absurd hockey dreams sound like something from an episode of “The Twilight Zone.”
“I’ll reach for a glove or something on the top shelf of the [locker] stall,” the winger said, “And either it’s stuck or I keep reaching and reaching and reaching — a little further, a little further — and can’t grab it.
“Or you finish tying your skate and turn around then turn back and it’s untied again. And you’ve got to tie it again. And everybody is out in the hallway waiting for you to come out. I’ll just randomly have it and wake up in a panic and then be like, ‘Whelp, thank God that’s not real.’”
They are more common for Rust during the long season. But sometimes they pop up in the early summer, when he hasn’t skated in a while.
“Punctuality is a huge part of our routines,” Rust theorized. “So maybe that just subconsciously sticks with us a little bit and might haunt us, I guess.”
Still, even some of the Penguins’ wildest dreams couldn’t top what happened to Bjugstad and McCann after the team traded for them Friday.
They learned around 12:30 p.m. they had been acquired from the Florida Panthers in exchange for Derick Brassard, Riley Sheahan and three 2019 draft picks — and that they were needed in Pittsburgh that night.
They landed in Pittsburgh at 6:18 p.m. and received a police escort from the airport. They arrived at the arena, Panthers bags in hand, at 6:55.
“It was pretty funny,” Bjugstad said. “The players were all clapping.”
Bjugstad sat down at his locker stall and reached for the zipper on his equipment bag. Here he was, heart racing, adrenaline pumping, staring down the anxious moment he has faced so many times in his nightmares.
“Thankfully,” he said, “everything was in there when I opened it.”
Surprisingly, 10 minutes is plenty of time for an NHL player to get dressed. DeSmith and Matt Murray, who must strap on those big pads, can do it in seven or eight. Most skaters need only a few to get into their gear.
“Teemu Selanne could do it in two minutes. It was unreal,” said Matt Cullen, the veteran center who played with the Hall-of-Famer in Anaheim. “He’d sit in the training room until it was like three minutes before we went out for warm-ups and he’d throw his stuff on and be ready to go.”
Cullen has witnessed a lot of amazing things in his long NHL career, but he never had seen anything like what Bjugstad and McCann had to do to make it in time for that 5-3 win against Ottawa. Then, Bjugstad played 16 minutes and tallied an assist. McCann logged just over 10 minutes.
“It felt like a dream,” Bjugstad said. “But this one was a good dream.”
He paused for a second, then added, “Hopefully, I don’t have any more dreams after that. Hopefully, that knocked it out of my brain.”