During most of the regular season, the Penguins hardly looked like a championship-caliber team. “We had a rough start the first couple months of the season, then we made some changes”. In December, the struggling Penguins fired head coach Mike Johnston and replaced him with Mike Sullivan.
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Jun 12, 2016; San Jose, CA, USA; Pittsburgh Penguins goalie Matt Murray (30) makes a save against the San Jose Sharks in the first period in game six of the 2016 Stanley Cup Final at SAP Center at San Jose.
“I was just thinking about how hard it was to get to this point and just trying to enjoy every second of it”, said Crosby. “You don’t think you do at the time, but it’s not easy to get to this point”.
“I thought we had a lot of fight and we found a way”, Crosby said. “I know the Conn Smythe means the best players and he’s been our best player and he has been all year”.
“But thanks to their ability to skate, move the puck, and get it out of danger, they find a way to make it work and on Sunday night, they played what might have been their best game of the season, limiting the Sharks to just 19 shots on goals”. He set up Kris Letang’s go-ahead goal and the Penguins never looked back. Pittsburgh winger Evgeni Malkin was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy in 2009, but this year it was the Penguins’ captain Sidney Crosby who was named playoff MVP.
“It places him up there with the greats of the game of all-time”, Sullivan said. “He’s that good in my mind. They supported. I know how stressful it was for them”, Letang said. His numbers don’t indicate the impact he had on helping this team win, or the impact he had on a game-to-game basis. The Pittsburgh Penguins won 3-1 to win the series 4-2. Unfortunately, they ran into the buzz saw that was the Pittsburgh Penguins, and the Capitals and their fans were sent to the offseason disappointed (yet again). “It’s not just their speed, they have good sticks, too”. There was no second celebration in the Crosby era – until now. The Penguins closed out their Stanley Cup win like champions, and earned that title.
It did not end with a Stanley Cup for the Sharks, but Couture had a postseason performance that only a small handful of players over the past two decades can match.
“Everyone takes that personal, puts the responsibility on their shoulders to be better”, Crosby said. “I don’t think anyone should ever question the leadership or the character or the will of the group of men in there”. “I thought we just slowly got better and better”.
Pittsburgh knocked off the New York Rangers in the first round, Presidents’ Trophy-winning Washington in round two and then rallied from a 3-2 series deficit to beat Tampa Bay in the Eastern Conference final.
Last night, the Penguins finally became that team of destiny. Incredibly, the Penguins held their opponents to just two shots the entire third period. An empty-netter by Patric Hornqvist in the third sealed the deal.
“Matt Murray was unbelievable down the stretch, and in the playoffs he was an incredible piece for us”, he said. And it was a long time coming for a player who, after winning in 2009, had advanced past the second round of the playoffs only once in the last six years.
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) – Sidney Crosby let out a scream as he lifted the Stanley Cup above his head, a wide smile spread across his face.
Jones was off the charts last week in Game 5 in Pittsburgh, stopping 44 shots as the Sharks dodged elimination and brought the series back to San Jose.
“The end is like hitting a wall”, DeBoer said, per Shawn P. Roarke of NHL.com.
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At the end of every playoff series, National Hockey League players admit to the injuries they’ve been playing through – and while Matt Cullen didn’t exactly have a severed limb to confess following the end of the Stanley Cup Final, he did admit to playing through at least one broken bone.
