Stanley's Sequel: The Penguins' Run to the 2017 Stanley Cup
128
Stanley's Sequel: The Penguins' Run to the 2017 Stanley Cup
128eBook
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Overview
Filled with stunning full-color photography and expert reporting from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Stanley's Sequel captures the Penguins' exciting journey, from the preseason to their Stadium Series in over the Flyers at Heinz Field to Chris Kunitz's goal in the second overtime of Game 7 against Ottawa and the final seconds against the Predators. This commemorative edition also includes in-depth profiles of Crosby, Malkin, head coach Mike Sullivan, veteran goalie Mark-Andre Fleury and other Penguins stars.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781633199620 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Triumph Books |
| Publication date: | 06/13/2017 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 128 |
| Sales rank: | 615,272 |
| File size: | 27 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Stanley's Sequel
The Penguins' Run to the 2017 Stanley Cup
By Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Triumph Books LLC
Copyright © 2017 Pittsburgh Post-GazetteAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-62937-356-0
CHAPTER 1
Stanley Cup Final vs. Nashville
Stanley Cup Final, Game 1
May 29, 2017 • Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Penguins 5, Predators 3
Early Wake-Up Call
Guentzel Nets Winner After Lead Evaporates
By Jason Mackey
They were the first words out of Penguins coach Mike Sullivan's mouth late Monday.
He could've quit right there, honestly. Pretty much hit the nail on the head, even if his team couldn't hit the net with a puck for much of this one.
"We weren't very good," Sullivan said. "You know, we weren't very good."
It's tough to argue. The Penguins were lousy and fortunate to leave PPG Paints Arena with a 5-3 win over the Nashville Predators in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup final.
Somehow.
Despite blowing a three-goal lead.
Forget dictating terms. Despite failing to register a shot on goal for a stretch of exactly 37 minutes that bridged all three periods and accounted for more than 60 percent of the entire game.
"This team usually, for the most part, is pretty good at making sure that we're continuing to play the game the right way," Sullivan said. "Tonight, that wasn't the case. We just weren't very good."
Before getting too specific, Jake Guentzel bailed the Penguins out with what turned out to be the game-winning goal at 16:43 of the third period. Nick Bonino tacked on an empty-netter.
The Penguins lead the series, 1-0, with Game 2 back here on Wednesday. The winner of Game 1 has won the Stanley Cup 78 percent of the time.
Nearly falling into an early series hole can be attributed to a few primary factors:
• The Penguins lost the special teams battle. Nashville went 2 for 3 on the power play, the same unit that converted that many times on 22 chances last round. After allowing just one power-play goal against Ottawa, Ryan Ellis and Colton Sissons made the Penguins pay.
• Nashville's defense did something drastically different than what the Penguins saw from the Senators: They played aggressive. It forced thePenguins forwards to make quick decisions with the puck, and that did not end well.
"Their D played pretty much in your face," Bonino said. "They make you dump the puck poorly. When you do, [goaltender Pekka] Rinne plays it really well. It's tough to establish a forecheck like that. It's tough to get odd-man rushes like that."
Or, evidently, shots on goal.
Get this: The Penguins only attempted 11 shots in the first, six in the second and 11 more in the third.
According to Penguins historian Bob Grove, their 12 shots on goal were the Penguins' fewest ever in a playoff game.
"I think they out-played us for most of the night," Justin Schultz said. "We can't expect to win if we play like that."
• Winning like this might also bring about questions of whether the Penguins are tired. Nobody has played more hockey since the start of last season. Nashville (six) had twice as many days off before this one.
Olli Maatta didn't want to hear about fatigue being an excuse.
"It shouldn't be," he said.
Still, Nashville was clearly the more energetic team.
"We talked a lot about our compete level," Maatta said. "We didn't bring it today."
• Guentzel's goal could be a template. Matt Cullen made a smart chip play off the wall, allowing Guentzel to enter the offensive zone with speed.
When the Penguins are humming, that's what they do. It didn't happen, however, for enough of Monday's game.
The Penguins will also look to eliminate the number of stretch passes they used in this one.
"That's our game — playing fast," Schultz said of the last goal. "When we're doing it, we're creating stuff. We didn't use our speed. Our defensemen weren't moving it up quick enough or joining the attack. It's everyone. We have to be better."
A disallowed goal at 7:13 of the first period swung the momentum in the Penguins' favor, as officials ruled Filip Forsberg was offside after a Sullivan challenge.
That triggered a run of goals by Evgeni Malkin, Conor Sheary and Bonino in a stretch of 4:11, but that's when the shots on goal stopped coming.
"We were yelling at everyone to shoot the puck," Sheary recalled. "Rinne hadn't seen one in a while. Maybe would catch him by surprise."
Ellis scored midway through the second, and Sissons and Frederick Gaudreau tied it in the third before the Penguins woke up.
"You never think you're going to blow a three-goal lead," Bonino said. "When we did, we almost knew it was coming. It wasn't like it snuck up on us. We knew they were coming. We weren't playing well. It woke us up a bit, then Jake saved us there. Times like that you just have to keep playing hard, stay focused, and it worked out for us."
The challenge for the Penguins will be internalizing what went wrong in this one, correcting the mistakes at practice and avoiding a repeat performance.
"We trust the leadership of the group that we have, that they get it," Sullivan said. "They understand. They know we weren't at our best. We had that discussion after the game.
"This is something we'll learn from and we'll try to make sure that we respond the right way for Game 2."
Stanley Cup Final, Game 2
May 31, 2017 • Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Penguins 4, Predators 1
Rookie Revelation
Guentzel Stars Again as Penguins Chase Rinne From Game 2
By Jason Mackey
From the moment he reached the NHL, Jake Guentzel has been off to the races.
First game, first shift, first shot, first goal. Two total in his NHL debut. Stealing the spotlight in the Penguins' Stadium Series game. Then nine goals in Guentzel's first 11 playoff games.
After a slight lag, look out: Penguins coach Mike Sullivan believes his rookie scorer may have gotten a second wind. As a result, Guentzel could be in line to pick up some major hardware.
Guentzel scored a pair of goals Wednesday in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup final to ignite a 4-1 Penguins victory against the Nashville Predators at PPG Paints Arena, giving him an NHL-high 12 so far this postseason.
"He's amazing," Evgeni Malkin said of Guentzel, the favorite for the Conn Smythe Trophy should the Penguins close this out.
How we got here, though, is truly the amazing part.
On Sunday, Guentzel looked like a healthy scratch. He took one line rush during practice while rotating on a fourth line with Carl Hagelin, Matt Cullen and Patric Hornqvist, who was set to return from an upper-body injury.
By Monday's Game 1, Guentzel was a cute little story. In the lineup after all, the well-liked, soft-spoken Guentzel scored the game-winning goal.
After Game 2, Guentzel became the story league-wide.
"He's mature, but he wants to go to those tough areas," Chris Kunitz said. "He wants to score those big goals. He has the skill set to create things on his own, but he also has the knack to put pucks on the net. I think when you have that fearless attitude, you have a chance to get pucks that get closer to you when you go to those tough areas. He's done a great job of scoring big goals for our team."
In 21 postseason games, Guentzel has 12 goals and 19 points, most ever for an American-born rookie. He's two goals shy of Dino Ciccarelli's rookie record from 1980-81. Five of Guentzel's goals have been game-winners.
According to Penguins historian Bob Grove, that's more than every other Penguins rookie since the start of the 2000 postseason combined.
"He brings energy," Matt Cullen said of Guentzel, who's 18 years younger than Cullen. "He's hanging onto pucks. He's making plays.
"Obviously he's finishing so well right now, but he does everything. He puts himself in good spots to score goals."
Late in the Eastern Conference semifinals, Sullivan worried Guentzel might be wearing down, the result of his smaller frame and never having handled the rigors of an NHL schedule.
So Sullivan and his staff made a concerted effort to cut Guentzel's minutes. Less is more, they figured. Guentzel has rewarded the coaching staff by bouncing back in a big way.
"He was great," Sullivan said of a few one-on-one conversations he had with Guentzel during an eight-game goal-less stretch. "He's a conscientious kid. He's a pleasure to coach. We just talked about playing the game the right way.
"He's a real talented kid. We just tried to shift the focus a little bit with him. We tried to cut his minutes because he was playing a lot of minutes.
"I think he's had an opportunity to get a little bit of a second wind. He's getting his legs back. I think his confidence is there."
Guentzel scored the Penguins' first goal at 16:36 of the first period, finishing the rebound of a Conor Sheary shot from in tight. He notched the game-winner at 10 seconds of the third period, off a juicy rebound courtesy of Nashville goaltender Pekka Rinne.
"We've been talking about putting pucks off pads," Guentzel said. "It happens. Great pass."
Great effort overall from the Penguins, one that puts them in the driver's seat in this series.
Figure that 45 of the 50 teams that have jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the Stanley Cup final have gone on to win the series, a 90-percent success rate.
Scott Wilson and Malkin scored 15 seconds apart in the third period to turn this into a quasi-laugher, while Matt Murray stopped 37 of 38 shots to deliver yet another dominant performance at home.
It's appropriate those three had a hand in the win.
Wilson is one of Guentzel's good friends. Malkin was the Penguins' Conn Smythe winner in 2009, and Murray was the precocious, unflappable rookie a season ago.
"He's a good kid off the ice, so he's fun to be around," Wilson said. "That never changed when he wasn't getting the bounces."
Sort of like Murray. No matter the shot, the period, the day of the week or what he had for breakfast, Murray focuses on one thing: stopping the puck.
Only for Guentzel, it's scoring goals, not preventing them.
"He's a confident kid," Murray said. "He really wanted to break that slump he was in. He's done it in a big way for us. Just like he was all season long and all playoffs long. He's a motivated kid. It doesn't surprise me at all to see him get two. He's been huge for us."
Stanley Cup Final, Game 3
June 3, 2017 • Nashville, Tennessee
Predators 5, Penguins 1
Southern Discomfort
Power Play Struggles as Predators Grab Game 3
By Jason Mackey
Nobody could have reasonably expected the Nashville Predators to fade quietly into the night.
They don't do anything below maximum decibel level. Why on Earth wouldn't they crank it up for the first Stanley Cup final game in Music City?
The Predators' 5-1 win over the Penguins in Game 3 Saturday included many ingredients, but any sort of postgame analysis should start with a caveat: Hey, the Predators don't stink.
Predators goalie Pekka Rinne makes save on the Penguins' Carter Rowney Saturday in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup final at Bridgestone Arena.
"It's a seven-game series," Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. "It's a long series. We knew this was going to be a hard-fought battle. That's exactly what it is.
"We've got to try and respond the right way."
The Predators had won seven of eight games at Bridgestone Arena in these playoffs. They swept the Chicago Blackhawks and beat the St. Louis Blues and Anaheim Ducks in six games to get here, locking down those teams' respective stars en route to victory.
Back home in front of their hockey-mad fans, a city that has been whipped into a frenzy by how cool playoff hockey can be whenever it's hot outside, the Predators turned this thing into a series again with a superb performance on home ice.
"They were the more desperate team," captain Sidney Crosby said. "That was pretty evident."
Instead of using a collection of highly skilled players to gain momentum, the Penguins are losing it when this group takes the ice.
"It's not working," Evgeni Malkin said. "We need to change something, maybe players, I don't know. It's tough to say right now. I know we can play better on the power play."
Worse, the key cogs on the Penguins power play — Sidney Crosby, Malkin and Phil Kessel — finished with three shots on goal and eight shot attempts on Saturday.
Crosby talked about the same stuff. It was a combined of missing the net and Predators shot blocks. Sullivan said postgame the Penguins are still trying to get Kessel to have more of a shoot-first attitude, and there's increasing speculation that he's not exactly healthy.
Meanwhile, Nashville's power play struck for a key goal early in the second period, which kick-started a threegoal run and gave the Predators confidence. Mattias Ekholm added a second man-advantage marker late.
"They got some momentum when they got that power play goal," Crosby said of Roman Josi's score at 5:51 of the second period.
Playing from behind, the Penguins were also forced to take a bunch of chances and, as a result, coughed up a few odd-man rushes.
The most obvious might have been a neutral-zone turnover by Chris Kunitz in the third period that led to a breakaway goal for Craig Smith. Not all Kunitz's fault. The puck hit Kessel's skate. But it still resulted in a chance the other way.
The Predators seemed to target Matt Murray's glove hand and scored three times that way. Murray said afterward he was happy with his positioning on the goals; it simply came down to making the save.
"I thought I was in the right spot on almost all of them," Murray said. "A couple weird bounces. ... It's just about making a save."
One good element for the Penguins was play of Carl Hagelin, Matt Cullen and Patric Hornqvist. They strung together several solid shifts early, but the group was unable to beat Rinne.
The Penguins were beaten by a team Saturday that simply wanted it more.
While that hasn't happened a ton under Sullivan — it's the first time they've suffered back-to-back road losses in the postseason on his watch — it's not exactly revolutionary for the opposing team to have a bounce-back game at home.
Its players get paid, too.
"They were hungrier," Malkin said. "We played [well] the first period, then we gave them so much space; they controlled the puck. We lost control after first period. We took a couple penalties and gave them a couple breakaways. It's not our game.
"We need to forget that, look forward and look to next game."
Stanley Cup Final, Game 4
June 5, 2017 • Nashville, Tennessee
Predators 4, Penguins 1
Tennessee TwoStep
Predators Change Tone with Back-to-Back Wins
By Jason Mackey
Less than a week ago the Penguins flew to Nashville holding a 2-0 series lead and were brimming with confidence. Back then, Predators goaltender Pekka Rinne couldn't stop a beach ball. The Penguins' offense was clicking. The thought of a sweep was plausible.
Times have certainly changed.
If the Penguins' 4-1 loss to Nashville in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup final Monday at Bridgestone Arena told us anything, it's that these final three games should be a lot of fun.
"We've been on both sides of it here," Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. "Both teams have won two games. These games are a lot closer than the score indicates. I think that was the case in our building. I think it was the case in this building. We've got to stay with it."
How much flipped with a trip to Music City?
When the Penguins flew south, Rinne's save percentage was already there to greet them — .778. The past two games, he's stood on his head, allowing just two goals.
"He's a great goaltender," Guentzel said of Rinne, who stopped 23 of 24 Monday and 50 of 52 over the two games here. "He can make those kinds of saves. I have to do a better job putting them in the back of the net."
We also saw two offensive talents for the Predators shine bright, one maybe you've heard about, another who doesn't even have his own dressing room stall.
The first, Viktor Arvidsson scored for the first time since Game 4 of the Western Conference final and may have busted out of a prolonged slump; he looked like the guy who tied for the Predators' regular season lead in goals with 31.
Rookie Frederick Gaudreau — who sits on a folding chair to change out of his hockey equipment — scored his third goal of the series, as he's quickly become Nashville's answer to Guentzel.
The Penguins had more shot attempts (57-50) and enjoyed a boatload of Grade-A opportunities. Furthermore, 21 of those attempts came from Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel.
The near misses included Guentzel from point-blank range off a Crosby feed at 2:31 of the second. Then a breakaway for Chris Kunitz at 3:29. In the first, Bryan Rust shot wide, and Guentzel had another on the doorstep. The Penguins even — don't fall over — flashed some flow on the power play. No dice.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Stanley's Sequel by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Copyright © 2017 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Excerpted by permission of Triumph Books LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction by David Shribman,Stanley Cup Final vs. Nashville,
Sidney Crosby Wins Conn Smythe Trophy for Second,
Consecutive Year,
Road To The Cup,
The Quest to Win Again,
Matt Murray,
Mike Sullivan,
Evgeni Malkin,
Sidney Crosby,
One Grand Night,
Marc-Andre Fleury,
Let the Madness Begin,
Justin Schultz,
Eastern Conference Quarterfinals vs. Columbus,
Eastern Conference Semifinals vs. Washington,
Eastern Conference Final vs. Ottawa,