Penguins take Game 7 to advance to Cup final against Sharks
Rust scores twice as Pittsburgh earns date with San Jose for Stanley Cup
PITTSBURGH There have been concussions and heartbreak, coaching changes and crushing playoff defeats and simply too many postseason disappointments to count.
For Sidney Crosby, the past seven years of his NHL career have left him wanting on so many levels.
But on Thursday night, with the yellow-clad capacity throng going bonkers around him, Sid The Kid looked around at the deafening chaos swirling throughout the Consol Energy Center as the reality of the situation hit him.
For the first time since 2009, his Pittsburgh Penguins are going to the Stanley Cup Final, thanks to a 2-1 victory over the defending Eastern Conference champion Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 7 of the this year’s conference final.
Then Crosby did something most Eastern Conference champions have not done.
He clutched the Prince of Wales Trophy.
Isn’t that bad luck? Not in Pittsburgh it isn’t.
“(The Penguins) touched it when they went on to win the Cup in the ’90s,” Crosby explained. “My first trip to the final in 2008 I didn’t touch it and we lost. In 2009 I touched it and we won the Cup.”
Does this mean the Penguins will go on to win hockey’s Holy Grail for the fourth time in franchise history?
Not so fast. There still remains a formidable teal roadblock in the San Jose Sharks.
Pittsburgh’s victory sets up a star-studded Stanley Cup final between the Penguins and the Sharks, who disposed of the St. Louis Blues in six games in the Western Conference final.
You want marquee names? You’ve got them in this matchup.
Crosby. Evgeni Malkin. Kris Letang. Phil Kessel. Joe Thornton. Brent Burns. Joe Pavelski. Logan Couture. This should be good. Game 1 of the final takes place Monday here in Pittsburgh, where fans haven’t seen a Stanley Cup final game since Crosby and Co. were grinding their way to the championship in a matchup against the Detroit Red Wings seven years ago. The Penguins did get to the Eastern Conference final in 2013, but were subsequently swept in four games by the Boston Bruins.
The Sharks and Penguins split their two regular season meetings, with the visiting team winning both times.
On Nov. 21, the Sharks came into the Consol Energy Center and disposed of the hosts by a 3-1 score. Burns scored twice for San Jose while Martin Jones made 38 saves.
Less than two weeks later, Phil Kessel scored a pair of goals to lead the Penguins to a 5-1 win at the Shark Tank. It was Pittsburgh’s first victory in San Jose’s SAP Arena since Oct. 22, 1997, snapping a winless streak in Silicon Valley of 19 years.
“Watching them in the playoffs so far, I expect a very fast series,” Crosby said, adding “their power play is very dangerous.”
Interestingly, the difference maker for the Penguins on Thursday — at least on the scoreboard — wasn’t Crosby or Malkin or Kessel or Letang.
No, on this special night in the Steel City, it was rookie Bryan Rust who played the starring role, scoring twice en route to leading the Penguins to the final.
Rust opened the scoring just 1:55 into the second period, finishing off a pretty three-way passing play with a missile into the top corner past helpless Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy.
It was Rust’s fourth goal of the 2016 post-season.
With Vasilevskiy recording a series of highlight-package saves to keep his team within one, Jonathan Drouin tied the game at 9:36 of the second with a brilliant goal against the flow of play. Drouin’s rocket was a goal-scorer’s goal, a shot that went against the grain to beat Pens goalie Matt Murray.
Just 30 seconds later, however, the Penguins regained the lead on a rare hiccup by Vasilevskiy.
When a Ben Lovejoy shot came off the backboards, the Tampa Bay goalie flubbed an attempt to cover up the puck.
Rust, seeing it sitting loose, poked it through Vasilevskiy, putting the Penguins up 2-1.
With Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin and star wideout Antonio Brown looking on, it was a lead the Penguins would not relinquish.
And as the clock ticked down, Nick Bonino leaned over to Rust and asked: “What’s it like to be a Pittsburgh hero?” Even Rust isn’t sure. “It’s a dream,” he said afterward. “You couldn’t have written a better script.”
In Crosby’s mind, you probably could.
One that has his Penguins beating the Sharks for a Stanley Cup title.