Hail to the Penguins, and Their "Exquisite Torture"

It was eight days ago that we watched and celebrated the Penguins winning their second consecutive Stanley Cup Championship, their third one in nine years, and the fifth time in their history that they have done so.

The One and Only Sid!

A Familiar Pose

I don't want any more time to elapse before I write about this victory, and the exquisite torture, as I termed it, that were these Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Round One, Pens over Blue Jackets.  The Pens won this series in five games, and as I watched this series unfold, I was impressed with how well the Pens were able to control the puck and keep it inside the blue line for extended periods of time.  I'm no expert, I  said to myself, but this is pretty good team.

Round 2, Pens over Capitals. It took seven games, but when the Pens continued their playoff mastery over the Caps (9-1 in Playoffs series in their history), I was thoroughly delighted. If this was as far as the Pens playoffs journey went, I would have been satisfied just to see the smug Washington media (not to mention Ovie and Barry Trotz-Trotz-Trotz) have to eat it.  Yeah, that means you, Michael Wilbon!  One Washington based podcast that I listen to made mention that while everyone in Washington hates Sydney Crosby, if you asked Caps' fans who they would rather have on their team, Ovechkin or Crosby, fully 90% of them would say Crosby.

Round 3, Pens over Senators. It was during this series that I coined the term "exquisite torture".  These games were so close and so tense, and the fear that they could turn on a dime with each rush of the puck, that it made it hard to watch.  That Game 7 went into double overtime only reinforced the drama and tension.  Thank you, Chris Kunitz, for ending the exquisite torture that night.

Finals, Pens over Predators.  Because we were away on vacation, I saw very little of this series.  Saw the first period of Game 1, and the second and third periods of Game 2, when the Pens scored three times in just a few minutes at the beginning of the third period to win that one while on board the Disney Wonder.  Missed both Games 3 and 4, thankfully, saw half of the Game 5 blowout, and missed not a single minute of that wonderful Game 6, which consisted of 58:25 minutes of even more exquisite torture before Patric Hornqvist lit the lamp that led to the victory and the Championship.

No mention of these Playoffs can be made without mention of this guy, Marc-Andre Fleury.

Pressed into service twenty minutes before Game 1 of the opening series due to a pre-game warm-up injury to Matt Murray, Fleury responded heroically.  He played in goal for all of the Columbus and Washington series, and into the Ottawa series.  He won nine games, before ceding the nets to Murray in that series.  To say that there would be no Cup championship without him in 2017 is not overstating the matter in the least.

He was the third player to hoist the Cup in the on-ice celebrations, and his handing it over to Murray was one of the most poignant and symbolic moments of that night.

Fluery is currently the longest tenured player on the team, a three time Stanley Cup winner, yet all knew that he was being supplanted by Matt Murray, and that this would no doubt be his last hurrah with the Pens.  The post playoffs reactions and comments by all of his teammates make you realize just what he has meant to the Penguins over the course of his thirteen years here, and what a terrific teammate he has been.   I can't wait to see the reception that he will get when he makes his first visit to PPG Paints Arena with another team, probably the Las Vegas expansion team.  He will be one visitor who will be greeted with a standing ovation from both the crowd and his ex-team.

So hail to the Penguins, and a special thank you to Marc-Andre Fleury.  What a great ride they gave us.

CHAMPIONS

All Hail the Pittsburgh Penguins, the 2016 winners of the Stanley Cup!  Like most Pittsburgh area sports fans, I was riveted to the clinching Game Six last night, and never relaxed, not for a moment, until Patric Hornqvist's empty-netter in the final minute that sealed the 3-1 win and 4-2 series triumph for the Penguins.  It was the Pens' fourth Stanley Cup win in their history.

It was an incredible game that capped an incredible series and playoff run for the Penguins.  I will leave it to the serious puck heads out there to provide detailed analysis of the X's and O's, the How's and the Why's of the Pens Championship run, but I will make this observation.

There were a total of three penalties in that game last night (not counting that one against the Pens with :09 remaining in the game), and a similar low number in Game Five.  Both this series and the semi-final series against Tampa Bay were played with a minimal, if any, amount of fighting and gooney.  When the stakes are at the highest level, the NHL players can play WITHOUT that sort of garbage, and when they do, it is a fun, exciting, skillful, and beautiful game to watch.  If they did that all of the time, then perhaps the Playoffs bandwagon jumpers, like me, would become more dedicated, season-long fans of the game.  Something for the NHL to think about.

And I once again want to salute NBC announcer Doc Emerick.  He is absolutely the best out there, any network, any sport.  As the third period was winding down last night, Marilyn said to me, "Who is that announcer?  I can't believe how he can do what he is doing in describing this game."  Yep.

And speaking of TV announcers, did you catch Alby Oxenreiter covering the post-game for Channel 11?  A lot of people did as he sort of blew up my Facebook news feed last night.  What a complete and total putz he was following the players and asking totally inane, downer, and downright stupid questions.

A final salute to the Conn Smythe winner, The Captain:

And I just have to share a meme (yes, I can now create memes, thanks to my friend, Donny Copper) that I put out on Facebook last night:

Well played, Penguins, well played.

A View of the Penguins (Possibly Uninformed)

This morning The Grandstander takes a rare foray into the world of NHL Hockey wherein I may well prove the old adage that "a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing".  Before doing so, I will present the following qualifications:

• I am not an avid follower of the sport.   I admit to being a shameless bandwagon rider when the Stanley Cup Playoffs roll around, and I will lose interest in said Playoffs when and if the Pens are eliminated.
• I understand the offsides and icing the puck rules, and that enables me to follow any game that I am watching.
• On the other hand, I have absolutely no idea as to what a "neutral zone trap" is (and I'll bet I'm not alone on that point).
• I would probably have trouble naming more that six or eight current members of the Penguins.

Okay, with all that said, it has been my observation than when watching these games, the Penguins have never appeared to me to be an appreciably better team than the whoever their opponent happens to be.  Granted, when you are in the Playoffs, all teams, theoretically, at least, are "good" teams, but this has been my observation whenever I have watched all or parts of Pens games during the season.  I know that the standings and the records established over the course of the full season belies that notion, but that is what I am seeing, and, again, I make no claim to being a hockey expert.

It is also alarming that, super stars Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin have combined to score three goals in seven playoff games (all from Malkin in one game in the Columbus series).  I can recall that Bobby Bonilla and Barry Bonds were figuratively run out of town on a rail by fans for similar Playoff performances for the Pirates back in 1990-92.  I'm not hearing much if any such criticisms of Crosby and Malkin, though.  Not sure why that is but maybe I'm not listening closely enough.  What I am hearing though is that most of the teams woes can be laid at the skates of Marc Andre Fleury, and that Dan Bylsma should be fired, which will probably happen unless the Pens get to the Finals and even then, they may have to actually win the Cup for the coach to keep his job.

But, hey, as I said at the beginning, what do I know about hockey?