Memories: The 2013 Pittsburgh Penguins

It was a cold December evening when I decided to start writing a blog about sports.  I was on the way to Consol Energy Center, to see, not NHL Hockey, but College Hockey.  It was in the final weeks of the lockout, not that we could see the end coming at the time.  It is fitting that my last post for a few months will be about the end of a hockey season.

For the Penguins, this season was magical.  It was late December, and many thought there would be no NHL season.  People were already making plans, and even I persuaded my Dad to buy Pirates tickets instead of spending money on Hockey tickets we would never receive.  Then, suddenly, it was over.  I woke up one Saturday morning and hockey was back.  We gleefully followed updates as various Penguins arrived at the Arena for practice.  We were clamoring for Hockey; enough to fill the 18,387 seat arena for an intra-squad scrimmage.  Hockey was back.

The regular season began excitingly enough, with a 3-1 handling of, guess who, the Philadelphia Flyers.  The next night, a 4-1 defeat of the "Cup Favorites" New York Rangers meant the Pens meant business.  The Penguins had an incredible regular season.  I'm only going to share a few highlights.

We dominated the Flyers in 3 of the 4 meetings, including an overtime win thanks to this beauty by Tyler Kennedy.  The Flyers, much to any Penguins fan's joy, had a dismal season.  They finished last in the Atlantic Division.  They weren't around in the playoffs to bother the Penguins.  It's always fun when the Flyers suck.

Then came the month of March.  I'll put it simply:  In the month of March, the Pens had 15 wins, and 0 losses.  It was a fun time to be a Pens fan.  The Penguins were not only scoring like there was no tomorrow, they weren't allowing many goals either (see: 3 consecutive shutouts).  The streak included wins against powerful wins such as Montreal (2), New York (Islanders), Boston (2), and Washington.  Make no mistake, Pens captain Sidney Crosby was the man behind all of this.  This is his team.

Next on our trip down memory lane: the Trade Deadline.  We went into this always-exciting time of year not expecting anything huge.  Maybe a depth winger or a 3rd line defenseman.  General Manager Ray Shero had other ideas.  The raid of the NHL began with the acquisition of winger Brenden Morrow from Dallas.  At the time, it was common thinking that he'd be a good tough guy to play alongside Evgeni Malkin.  We would have been content if Shero had stopped there.

Then came defenseman Douglas Murray, or "crankshaft".  We hadn't seen much of him (he played in San Jose), but we would soon find out that he was one of the better hitters in the NHL.

Next came the big prize.  It was the evening of March 27th.  It was pretty much agreed upon that star winger Jarome Iginla would be traded to Boston.  There was a deal "in place".  However, Iginla had a No-Trade Clause, meaning he could approve or reject any trade offers.  So, late at night, when all the Pens fans had gone to sleep, the Pens put in an offer.  It was inferior to that of Boston, but that was beside the point.  Iginla wanted to come to Pittsburgh.  It's the benefit of having Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.  People want to play here.   It was a Christmas-Morning scenario:  Pittsburghers everywhere woke up to the news that Ray Shero had robbed Boston of Jarome Iginla.

And now, the Playoffs.  The first round was kind of a mess.  It featured a dominant win in game one, then a hard fought loss in game two.  An overtime win in game three preempted a disgustingly sloppy loss in game four, allowing the Islanders to tie the series at two.  Marc Andre Fleury played awful, and that would be his last start of the playoffs, and possibly as a Penguin.  Vokoun entered the crease for the Pens, and they blew out New York in game five, and won a thrilling game six off a Brooks Orpik overtime goal.

Round two was a fun time for all.  We solidly took a 2-0 on home ice against the Ottawa Senators.  Game three was all Pens, but Craig Anderson robbed the Pens of the W.  Game four looked to be headed the same way, until the Pens broke Anderson and put in five goals in the third period.  Game five was a blowout, dispatching the Sens quickly.

Nobody wants to talk about the third round against Boston.  We all know what went wrong.  We couldn't score.  Yes, Bruin Goaltender Tuukka Rask was great.  However, we would have had a lot more goals if Penguins simply went to the net to provide screens and collet rebounds.  They didn't do that at all.  That's why we lost game three 2-1 and game four 1-0.  That's all I have to say about that series.

Overall, it was an incredible season.  I don't think Dan Bylsma should be fired, and I don't think he will be.  I'll be right here when training camp opens in September.

9 wins, 9 reasons

The Penguins have established themselves as the team to beat in the Eastern Conference, with 44 points.  Somehow, they have just one less win than the miraculous Chicago Blackhawks (and their streak of 24 games without a loss-in-regulation).  The Pens sit atop the Atlantic Division, and to every Pens fan's delight, Philadelphia sits at the bottom.  That's right, the Flyers are below the Islanders.  Anyhow, the Penguins currently sit atop a 9 game winning streak, which could be accredited to the following 9 reasons:

1. Sidney Crosby "Sid will never be the same".  "He's one big hit away from retirement".  Those are two quotes thrown around a lot over the past year.  Amusingly enough, such rumors were entirely started and continued by fans.  Not team doctors, not team officials, not team coaches, not other players, and certainly not Sid himself.  I have no basis for saying this, but I'd be willing to bet that anybody who said that had no formal medical training whatsoever.  Sid The Kid is back to stay, and better than ever.  Teammate Brooks Orpik, who has played with Crosby for his entire career, says this is the best he's ever seen him, even better than his pre-concussion tear.  He leads the league in points by a mile.  He piles up the assists at an insane rate, and the scoring touch seems to be picking up by the day.  Its no coincidence that the Penguins are winning.

2. Goaltending The Pens goaltending was more or less a question mark for the beginning of this year.  Backup Tomas Vokoun had three or four bad performances, and Marc-Andre Fleury showed vulnerability. On this winning streak, save for a couple exceptions, the goaltending has been more than strong.

3. Penalty Kill In the first part of the season (most noticeably on the Pens' mini losing streak which preceded the winning streak) the team's penalty kill was very weak.  This was a stark contrast to the past two seasons, in which the Penguins took the 1st and 4th rankings respectively.  On this winning streak, for the most part, the PK has looked back like its old self.  They are pressuring the puck more, which forces opponents to make quick (and bad) decisions.

4. No Excuses Remember 2011, when Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin sat out the final four months of the season?  Remember how the Penguins made the playoffs (with home--ice advantage) that year?  Its because they (led by coach Dan Bylsma) NEVER use injuries as excuses.  Over the course of this winning streak, the Pens have been without Evgeni Malkin for most of the time.  One could hardly notice.

5. Persistence Pays Off Many have labeled the 2013 Penguins as the "comeback kids"(similar to the '08-'09 team).  The team has made late, dramatic comebacks a bit of a habit.  Notable ones include a 2-goal comeback vs. Philly in the 3rd period, a 2-goal comeback vs. Boston in the 3rd, a 3 goal comeback @ Florida in the 2nd and 3rd periods, and a 3 goal comeback @ Philly.  The persistence has provided several empowering victories, and has given them the look of a playoff team.

6. Home Ice Another rumor thats been flying around: Consol Energy Center is too quiet.  I simply don't understand this one.  I mean, any arena would be quiet with its team down 4-1 to the Islanders.  Even in a normal circumstance, no fan base screams during play relentlessly (save for the insane MTS Centre in Winnipeg).  During big moments towards the end of the game, Consol is as loud as anywhere in the NHL.  You have to think this affects the players in a positive way.

7. Welcome to Pittsburgh, Sutter Brandon Sutter started his career with the Penguins extremely quietly.  He wasn't necessarily bad, he just wasn't scoring much.  He played terrific defensive hockey. Now, all of a sudden, he has become a source of dramatic, game-changing goals.  With a late goal to complete a huge comeback vs. the Flyers, and two goals in the final five minutes of an astonishing comeback win vs. Boston, Sutter certainly has carved a place in this team.

8. Depth The Penguins depth is unbelievable, from top to bottom.  First off, any claims that Sidney Crosby should get some better wingers are absolutely absurd.  On one side, you have Chris Kunitz, who is second in the league in points (only to Crosby.  Kunitz also has two hat tricks on the season).  Third line center Brandon Sutter is thriving, as I said above.  James Neal is continuing to be the 40-goal man of last year.  Dustin Jeffrey is ably filling in for injured Malkin.  Newbie Beau Bennett is already making waves, as a second line winger.  It even goes down to the fourth line in Joe Vitale, who leads the way in face-offs.

9. Discipline Something the Penguins lacked in a big way before this streak is discipline.  Taking too many penalties.  One way or another, they have simply stopped doing that, which obviously results in less chances for opponents to score.

Devils 3, Pens 1

A perfect storm came together tonight at Consol Energy Center.  Not the kind that the 18,658 had been hoping for (They beat the attendance record by ONE person.  Pretty sure it was me).  It was a perfect storm of poor play by the Penguins and impressive play by the Devils.

To start, Devils' goaltender Johan Hedberg (the moose) played totally lights out.  The Pens got a few great chances in the first period, but Hedberg made even better saves.  He ended up shutting down (in part) a Penguins comeback attempt.

The Devils are known best for their defense.  Nobody goes to a Devils game thinking "Gee, I hope we get to see that explosive offense".  The Devils like to get a lead in a game, and then lock it down defensively.  They got a chance to do that today, when the Penguins spotted them a three goal lead towards the end of the second period.  They promptly went into shutdown mode, and it paid off.  The Pens got a goal just 14 seconds into the third period, but that was it.

The Devils played very well, but the Penguins played an extremely poor game as well.  There seemed to be a lack of hustle or urgency.  They would dump the puck in repeatedly, and seem to be slow to get in after it.  They must be tired, however, as they have played six games in the past nine days.  They were thoroughly unimpressive on offense.  They always went back to the same strategy of having a defender, who was deep in his own zone, sling the puck hard to a player who was guarded near the other end of the neutral zone.  It worked well under a quarter of the time.  When they did get into the offensive zone, they always swung to the outside and sometimes turned it over.  Sometimes a player would be driving to the net, and they would pass it to the outside only for that player to take the unscreened, long range, outside shot which would be saved effortlessly.