Penguins biggest test yet for upstart Preds
PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Penguins kept getting by even as their star players kept skating off the ice in pain. Even as the targets on their back as last year’s Stanley Cup champions kept getting bigger. Even as Columbus and Washington and Ottawa kept pushing and prodding, poking and pinching in this year’s playoffs.
“Just play,” coach Mike Sullivan kept telling his players, over and over and over again.
So the Penguins did. And the team that found itself uncharacteristically on its heels for long stretches as it fended off the Blue Jackets in the first round, shut down the Capitals in the second and outlasted the blue-collar Senators in the third is back where it was a year ago: heading to the Stanley Cup Final with confidence, momentum and more than a little bit of swagger.
Next up: “Smashville.”
Pittsburgh earned a return trip to the title series with a thrilling 3-2 double-overtime victory over Ottawa in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals Thursday night. Chris Kunitz provided the winner, a knuckler from just outside the circle that made its way past Craig Anderson 5:09 into the second extra period and moved the Penguins a step closer to becoming the first repeat NHL champion in nearly 20 years.
And here’s the scary part: after a season blemished by the loss of do-everything defenseman Kris Letang and significant absences for Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby, Kunitz, goaltender Matt Murray and a host of others, the Penguins are starting to look like the team that picked apart San Jose in six games last June to capture the franchise’s
fourth title.
“Our last four games in this series for me, we really found our game,” Sullivan said Thursday night.
The result is an intriguing final between NHL royalty and the rowdy neighbors next door. The Penguins have experience, leadership and star power. The Predators have defenseman P.K. Subban, a bunch of country music A-listers in the stands and absolutely nothing to lose in their first appearance on hockey’s biggest stage.
Game 1 is Monday night in Pittsburgh. The teams split their two meetings during the regular season, with each winning on home ice. Nashville overwhelmed Pittsburgh 5-1 in November; the Penguins won 4-2 in January.
Their next meeting will mark the first time in NHL history the coaches of both Stanley Cup Final teams are Americans. Nashville’s Peter Laviolette first turned a team in the Deep South into a champion 11 years ago when he guided the Carolina Hurricanes to their only title. Sullivan took over in Pittsburgh in December 2015 and provided the edge the Penguins so desperately needed, becoming the sixth U.S.born coach to win it all.
In some ways, their teams have become reflections of them.
The Predators aren’t nicknamed “Smashville” just for kicks. They were the last team to qualify for the playoffs but have caught fire the past six weeks, steamrolling through the Western Conference playoffs against Chicago, St. Louis and Anaheim.