Pittsburgh, we’re back.
For the second straight year, the Penguins are in the Stanley Cup Final. This year the road was more painful, more filled with potholes and detours. From losing Kris Letang in the regular season to playing a large portion of the Eastern Conference Final without then-top defender Justin Schultz, it’s been a ride. One people around the league want to end here. No seriously.
This year’s playoff darlings are the Penguins foe in the final, the Nashville Predators. They’re cool and different. They’ve got P.K. Subban, the game’s best personality and arguably one of it’s best defenders. Everyone is on their side. No one, outside of our city, wants us to win and thanks to our injuries and their meteroic rise, not many people expect us to. So let’s embrace it. As head coach Mike Sullivan says, embrace the process.
I’m a people-pleaser, so I can speak as someone who struggles hard when people don’t like your team. This time, we gotta embrace, enjoy being the heels. Canadian fans think we have “won enough.” Philly and Washington fans will always cheer against us. And everyone wants to jump on the Preds bandwagon. Let them.
We know this team. Not a single regularly playing member of this team is actually unlikeable (people who don’t like 87 are jealous, simple). The only guy we all dislike is Tom Sestito…and he isn’t going to see the ice with all the skilled black aces in the fold. From the leaders of this team in Crosby, Malkin and Kunitz down to rookies like Guentzel, they’re all good eggs. So let’s enjoy this. It took double overtime to squish the Ottawa Cockroaches but they did it. And now, it’s on to the big dance.
Watch the improved play of Olli Maatta. Enjoy playoff rookie Ron Hainsey. Experience Evgeni Malkin’s beast mode. Just let it come to you.
No matter what happens we are so incredibly lucky. There are 29 other teams (I am including Vegas here) who would give anything to be here. There are 29 other teams who want to know HOW a 16-seed and a team this badly broken made it this far. That’s cool. They’re completely in their right to do so. But now it’s time to show them how we got here and why we aren’t stopping yet. Drop the puck and enjoy the chase.
Go to the screen, go to a game, watch the Final with friends and family. Paint your face and scream and yell. But be respectful. Don’t throw stuff on the ice unless 71 got himself a hat trick. Live in this moment but do it in a way you won’t be afraid to look back on in ten years.
No matter what happens this team and franchise have made history. No other team has made the Stanley Cup Final on back-to-back occasions three times in the expansion era (91-92, 08-09, 16-17). This is special. So let’s drop the puck tonight and party hard for as many games as we have left. Don’t worry about who this team might lose. Now is not the time. Don’t criticize the coaching staff. There is nothing to be gained by it.
Be hungry. Be happy. Wave your rally towel, after all it was invented here, and remind the Predators that when you play Pittsburgh – you play the whole city.
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