Striking Gold: The Penguins' Amazing Run to the 2016 Stanley Cup
128
Striking Gold: The Penguins' Amazing Run to the 2016 Stanley Cup
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781633197138 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Triumph Books |
| Publication date: | 06/15/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 128 |
| Sales rank: | 1,002,271 |
| File size: | 17 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
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Striking Gold
The Penguins' Amazing Run To The 2016 Stanley Cup
By John Robinson Block
Triumph Books LLC
Copyright © 2016 Pittsburgh Post-GazetteAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-63319-713-8
CHAPTER 1
STANLEY CUP FINAL, GAME 1
MAY 30, 2016 * PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
PENGUINS 3, SHARKS 2
TAKING A BIG FIRST STEP
Nick Bonino Scores Late in the Third Period, Then the Penalty-Killers Step up and Thwart a Power Play with 2:09 Left for a Dramatic Win
By Dave Molinari
It was not, Nick Bonino said, his hardest shot.
Not in his career.
Not even in this game.
But it was one of the most important, because it gave the Penguins a 3-2 victory against San Jose in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup final at Consol Energy Center.
The score was tied, 2-2, when Bonino took a feed from defenseman Kris Letang, who was behind the San Jose goal line, and threw a shot past Sharks goalie Martin Jones at 17:27 of the third period to break a 2-2 tie.
"I kind of found a way to flip it over him," Bonino said.
Whether the Penguins will have right winger Bryan Rust for that game wasn't immediately clear. Rust took a high hit from San Jose's Patrick Marleau early in the third period and adjourned to the dressing room. He returned a few minutes later but, after skating one shift, left the game again.
Penguins coach Mike Sullivan described the check as a "blindside hit to the head" and said Rust is listed as "day-to-day."
Rust, who scored both of the Penguins' goals in their 2-1 victory against Tampa Bay in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final, opened the scoring against San Jose at 12:46 of the opening period. He chopped a Justin Schultz rebound past Jones for his sixth of the playoffs — the most by a Penguins rookie — and fourth in two-plus games.
Chris Kunitz got the other assist, extending his scoring streak to six games.
The crowd of 18,596 still was celebrating that goal when Conor Sheary took a feed from Sidney Crosby and threw a high shot past Jones from just inside the right dot at 13:48. Sheary's shot, which beat Jones high on the far side, was flawless, but the pass that made the goal possible might have been even better.
Crosby had the puck along the left-wing boards, then threw a cross-ice, backhand feed onto Sheary's stick in the right circle.
"I just tried to find a soft area on the weak side of the ice, and he obviously saw me and made a great pass," Sheary said.
Those goals were the high points of a period in which the Penguins dominated play, mostly by exploiting their advantage in speed. They ran up a 15-4 edge in shots, which was a fair reflection of how those 20 minutes unfolded.
"I thought that first period was as good as we've looked, as a team," goalie Matt Murray said.
San Jose coach Peter DeBoer had a different perspective on the opening period — "We didn't play our game in the first period," he said "we stood around and watched" — and was infinitely more pleased with the second, when the Sharks tied the score on goals by Tomas Hertl (3:02) and Marleau (18:12).
"We knew they were going to push back," Penguins center Matt Cullen said.
San Jose couldn't shove the Penguins all the way out of the game, however, and they preserved the victory by shutting down the Sharks' lethal power play after Bonino's goal.
"Keeping home ice in the series is going to be huge," Sheary said. "So to come out with a win was very important."
STANLEY CUP FINAL, GAME 2
JUNE 1, 2016 * PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
PENGUINS 2, SHARKS 1, OT
CROSBY'S CALLED SHOT
Sheary Overtime Goal Gives Penguins 2-1 Win, 2-0 Series Lead Vs. Sharks
By Dave Molinari
Carl Hagelin is a pretty sharp guy, and undoubtedly got a quality education at the University of Michigan.
But he didn't need any formal training to grasp the value of the Penguins' 2-1 overtime victory against San Jose in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup final at Consol Energy Center.
Because the difference between having a 2-0 lead in a best-of-seven series — as the Penguins do — and being tied, 1-1, as significant as it is obvious.
"It's very different," Hagelin said. "If we would have lost that game, it wouldn't have been devastating, but it would have been tough."
That possibility was rendered moot at 2:35 of overtime, when Conor Sheary beat Sharks goalie Martin Jones from above the left hash mark for his fourth goal of the playoffs.
Sheary has goals in 10 games this season; the Penguins have won nine of them. This one, though, appears to be the first scripted by center Sidney Crosby.
Before a faceoff in the San Jose end, Crosby told his teammates precisely where they should be, and how they should expect the play to unfold. Crosby's plan began with him controlling the draw against San Jose's Joel Ward.
"He said he was going to win it to me," defenseman Kris Letang said, "And I had to find [Sheary]."
Sheary, meanwhile, was told that Letang "was going to find me in the soft area there."
Good plan. Better execution.
Crosby won the faceoff to Letang, who was at the left point and patiently waited for Sheary to get open.
And when Sheary did, Letang fed the puck to him. The same puck that ended up behind Jones a second or so later.
Sheary's goal resulted in the 11th time in Sharks history that they have started a series 0-2. They lost each of the previous 10.
The Penguins are the 50th team to win the first two games of a Cup final. The previous 49 are 44-5.
The Penguins never have trailed in this series and took a 1-0 lead in Game 2 at 8:20 of the second period.
Phil Kessel, perched at the right side of the crease, steered in a Nick Bonino shot for his team-leading 10th goal of the playoffs. Hagelin got the second assist.
Bonino's shot might have sneaked inside the right post, but Kessel chipped it into the net to remove any doubt.
"I think guys are going to give him some crap about that, because it's Phil," Bonino said. "But he can't pass that up.
"You have to whack that in."
Hagelin, who got the other assist on that goal, agreed.
"It's one of those things where the puck is about to go in, but it's low, so if [Kessel] doesn't put it in, who knows if someone dives to get it out," he said.
"So he did the right thing."
That goal figured to be the winner until 15:55 of the third, when Sharks defenseman Justin Braun put a shot off the right goalpost and past goalie Matt Murray.
Braun's goal put the game into overtime, but didn't particularly faze the Penguins.
"When they scored late in the third period, we stayed with our game plan," right winger Patric Hornqvist said.
"If we do that, it's going to be hard to beat us."
And the Sharks are starting to run out of chances to try.
STANLEY CUP FINAL, GAME 3
JUNE 4, 2016 * SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA
SHARKS 3, PENGUINS 2, OT
REVERSAL OF FORTUNES
In a Rare Second Overtime Game in the Title Round, San Jose's Joonas Donskoi Tipped the Scales Against the Penguins
By Dave Molinari
Game 3, the San Jose Sharks figured, was when they would make their stand. Not that they had much choice. After dropping Games 1 and 2 of the Stanley Cup final to the Penguins, a loss in Game 3 would pretty much have assured the Sharks of leaving the series as silver-medalists.
After all, just four teams in playoff history have rebounded from a 3-0 deficit to win a best-of-seven series. Toronto, in 1942, is the only club to do it in a Cup final.
So the Sharks' 3-2 overtime victory didn't just slice the Penguins' lead in half; it kept San Jose alive as a viable threat to claim the Cup for the first time in franchise history.
The Penguins have a clear edge heading into Game 4 at the SAP Center — they could lose that game and still have home-ice advantage in what would become a best-of-three — but San Jose's pulse remains strong.
"We're in a good position here still," Penguins center Matt Cullen said. "We need to take care of business in the next one."
Joonas Donskoi of the Sharks assured the suspense would remain in the series when he beat Penguins goalie Matt Murray with a turning shot from low in the left circle at 12:18 of overtime to give San Jose not only a victory, but its first lead of the series.
San Jose forced overtime when Joel Ward beat Murray on an unscreened shot from the top of the slot at 8:48 of the third period, just as a double-minor for high-sticking assessed to Penguins center Nick Bonino expired.
The Penguins had killed Bonino's penalty, which was issued for smacking San Jose's Joe Thornton in the face with his stick, effectively, but that was rendered moot when Ward scored the goal that made it 2-2.
"It [stinks] that they were able to tie it in the third, but I thought we had a strong push back," winger Bryan Rust said. "We played well in overtime, but they got the bounce."
Actually, everyone got the bounce. All night.
The puck hopped around the SAP Center ice like an over- caffeinated Super Ball.
"It was tough ice," Cullen said. "[The puck] was bouncing a lot."
The playing surface didn't do much to impede Penguins defenseman Ben Lovejoy.
He scored their first goal and assisted on their other, when Patric Hornqvist deflected his shot past Sharks goalie Martin Jones with 52.3 seconds left in the second period.
Although Hornqvist put the Penguins in a pretty good spot — they had lost just one game since the start of the regular season when leading after 40 minutes — Ward's goal gave the Sharks the boost they needed to get back into the series.
"It is what it is," Penguins right winger Phil Kessel said. "I thought we played good in stretches, and they played good in stretches."
The Penguins are 13-2 in playoff series in which they win the first two games, and while the defeat in Game 3 stung, they insist that it won't be an issue when they face the Sharks in Game 4.
"That's what we've been doing really well over the past four months, just putting games behind us, whether we win or lose," Rust said. "And move on to the next one."
STANLEY CUP FINAL, GAME 4
JUNE 6, 2016 * SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA
PENGUINS 3, SHARKS 1
ON THE LIP OF THE CUP
Evgeni Malkin Scored His First Goal of the Championship Round, and Goaltender Matt Murray Made it Stand up as the Winner
By Dave Molinari
Nobody likes to shoot pucks more than Phil Kessel.
Few guys score more goals than he does, either.
But Kessel's most important shot of these playoffs didn't end up in the net. And it probably wasn't supposed to.
But it did get the Penguins started toward what became a 3-1 victory against San Jose in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup final at SAP Center.
The victory that has given them a 3-1 lead in the series also put them into position to win the fourth Stanley Cup in franchise history.
The Penguins never have played a potential Cup-clincher at home. Their titles in 1991, 1992 and 2009 all were won on the road and on the first opportunity.
The Penguins have lost two games in a row just once in these playoffs and have not dropped three in a row since a 0-4-1 skid in mid-December.
The Penguins stopped their most recent losing streak at one, thanks to a solid team effort that was highlighted by a 23-save effort by rookie goalie Matt Murray and two-point contributions by Kessel and Evgeni Malkin.
They were outshot [24-20] for the first time in 13 games, but played with a lead from the time defenseman Ian Cole scored at 7:36 of the opening period until time expired.
Cole, who had not scored in the previous 104 games, counting regular season and playoffs, put them in front to stay when he threw a Kessel rebound past Sharks goalie Martin Jones.
"I was saving a special one for a special game," Cole said, smiling.
Kessel had shot from the right side, and Jones steered the rebound right where Cole expected it to go.
He anticipated there would be a rebound because the Penguins routinely put the puck on goal with the idea of creating one that can be converted into a scoring chance.
"Maybe he was trying to score, and it ended up that way," Cole said. "But I have to give him the benefit of the doubt and say he saw me and put it over there on purpose."
Although Cole put the Penguins ahead to stay, Malkin — shut out in the first three games against San Jose — scored the winner during a power play at 2:37 of the second, when he set up at the right post and chipped in a feed from Kessel for his first goal in seven games.
Malkin also had assisted on Cole's goal and turned in one of his best showings of the spring.
"You saw tonight how dominant he can be," Cole said.
The Sharks, with predictable desperation, surged during the final 20 minutes, throwing 12 shots at Murray and getting on the scoreboard when Melker Karlsson beat him from inside the left circle at 8:07.
"They pushed hard," center Matt Cullen said.
"We defended hard. It was a heck of a hockey game. It was up and down, and [Murray] was up to the challenge."
Checking-line forward Eric Fehr snuffed any chance of a third consecutive overtime game when he beat Jones from the slot at 17:58 to restore the Penguins' two-goal advantage.
And to move them within one victory away of a championship that seemed unthinkable when 2016 began.
"We know that's the hardest one to win," center Nick Bonino said.
"I'm sure we'll see their best game. And we have to bring ours."
STANLEY CUP FINAL, GAME 5
JUNE 9, 2016 * PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
SHARKS 4, PENGUINS 2
SPOILING THE PARTY
Penguins Drop Game 5 to Sharks, 4-2
By Dave Molinari
It was the game the Penguins wanted to play.
Heck, it was the game they felt they needed to play if they were going to clinch the franchise's fourth Stanley Cup.
And they played it.
Just not quite long enough in what became a 4-2 loss to San Jose in Game 5 of the Cup final at Consol Energy Center.
The Sharks' victory pared the Penguins' lead in the series to 3-2.
San Jose scored on two of its first three shots, getting two goals in the first three minutes, then withstood a sustained push by the Penguins, who never managed to catch up after falling behind again late in the opening period.
"Everybody knows that we're a better team than those first five minutes," Penguins defenseman Olli Maatta said. "I think we showed it after."
The Sharks frustrated not only the Penguins, who were attempting to become the first Pittsburghbased team to win a championship inside the city limits since the 1960 Pirates, but thousands of fans who gathered outside the arena and in Market Square to watch the game on large screens.
Game 5 attracted a crowd of 18,680, a record at Consol Energy Center. The vast majority of those people went home disappointed mostly because of San Jose goalie Martin Jones, who made 44 saves.
"They threw a lot of pucks at the net," Jones said. "That's kind of the way they play."
But it wasn't just the quantity of shots Jones faced. More than a few of them came on high-quality chances.
He made a good save on Phil Kessel from inside the right circle on the Penguins' first shot of the game just over three minutes into the contest — the Sharks already had a 2-0 lead by then — and made probably his best stop with just under five minutes to go in the second period when he rejected Nick Bonino's backhander off a Kessel rebound.
"I kind of made life difficult for myself a couple of times with rebounds," Jones said.
Truth be told, the Penguins made his life difficult much of the evening, too, as they consistently sent pucks and bodies at him.
"We did a great job of taking the puck to the net," right winger Patric Hornqvist said.
And, for a brief stretch in the first, they did a pretty fair job of putting pucks in the net, too.
Evgeni Malkin cut San Jose's lead to 2-1 with a power-play goal at 4:44, and a Bonino shot caromed off Carl Hagelin and into the net behind Jones 22 seconds later to pull the Penguins even.
Nearly 55 minutes remained, but that was the final puck that eluded Jones.
"We couldn't seem to find that third goal," Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said.
San Jose did at 14:47 of the first, when Melker Karlsson beat Penguins goalie Matt Murray — who stopped just four of seven shots in that period — from the left hash mark for what proved to be the winner.
The Penguins continued to control play for much of regulation, but San Jose got the only other goal when Joe Pavelski closed out the scoring with an empty-netter at 18:40 of the third.
And so the Penguins will fly back to California today, and try to get the final victory they need Sunday.
"We just have to bear down," Maatta said. "We had those chances. It just wasn't our day."
STANLEY CUP FINAL, GAME 6
JUNE 12, 2016 * SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA
PENGUINS 3, SHARKS 1
CHAMPS!
Letang, Dumoulin Break Through Against Brilliant San Jose Goalie Jones, Hornqvist Adds Empty-Netter to Kick Off City-Wide Celebration
By Dave Molinari
Sure, talent matters.
More than just about anything, probably.
So a team whose payroll is studded with the likes of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Phil Kessel and Kris Letang, among others, almost has an almost unfair advantage.
But it takes commitment to forge a champion, as the Penguins proved again in the third period of their 3-1 victory against San Jose in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup final at SAP Center.
The victory secured the team's fourth championship and, in the process, etched June 12, 2016, alongside the most celebrated dates in franchise history.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Striking Gold by John Robinson Block. Copyright © 2016 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,
The 2015-2016 Season,
Phil Kessel,
Pascal Dupuis,
Sidney Crosby,
Marc-Andre Fleury,
Mike Sullivan,
Matt Murray,
Eastern Conference Quarterfinal,
Eastern Conference Semifinal,
Eastern Conference Final,