May 24, 2013
When the Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup in 2009, people looked at a roster that included the likes of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jordan Staal, Kris Letang and Marc-Andre Fleury and assumed that the victory marked the beginning of an era.
Well, Fleury is on the bench, Staal is in Carolina and despite tremendous regular season success, 2013 marked the Penguins first trip out of the first round since they made it into round two in 2010.
Now they are in round two, they are seriously starting to look like Stanley Cup favorites again. On Wednesday night, the Penguins erupted for six goals against arguably the best goaltender in the league and playoffs so far, Craig Anderson, in an authoritative 7-3 win. Pittsburgh now owns a commanding 3-1 advantage in the series.
Ottawa Senators’ coach Paul Maclean fielded no questions in his post-game press conference showing the defiance and determination of a franchise that has impressed so much over the past two seasons. However, captain Daniel Alfredsson’s answer of ‘probably not’ to the question of whether Ottawa could bounce back from the Game 4 defeat was probably just about as honest as it gets.
It seems unlikely that the Senators can pull off three straight victories (two in Pittsburgh’s Consol Energy Center) to win this series and advance to the conference finals. They don’t have the fire pwer and it just seems inconceivable that an offense that includes Crosby, Malkin, Jarome Iginla, James Neal, Chris Kunitz, Pascal Dupuis, Brandon Sutter and Jussi Jokinen won’t break through in one game out of three.
Meanwhile, Tomas Vokoun, who was inserted as Pittsburgh’s starting goaltender for Game 5 against the New York Islanders in round one, has been just about perfect through six games of the 2013 NHL playoffs so far. He has posted a .942 save percentage and 1.82 GAA in six games. The 36-year old looks like a veteran who is finally enjoying a long playoff run after playing in 14 NHL seasons. Vokoun has never advanced past the first round and had appeared in just 11 postseason games before 2013.
Any team headlined by Crosby and Malkin will start the season off as big favorites and that has been the case for several seasons in Pittsburgh now. However, Penguins’ GM Ray Shero has somehow assembled a superstar line-up this season. Vokoun was the team’s back-up goaltender. Iginla, Jokinen and Brendan Morrow were added to an already deep forward group and the team still stayed cap compliant. Shero also traded for veteran defenseman Douglas Murray and he did all of it without giving any significant pieces up.
There isn’t an element that is missing from this line-up. A spirited, well-coached and skilful Ottawa team has been completely over-matched through most of this series. Anderson has been peppered and there has just been no let up through the four games so far.
A potential conference finals match-up against the Boston Bruins could be very exciting and there is still a chance for what could be the best Stanley Cup Finals in recent history if the Chicago Blackhawks make it through the Western conference. Anything can happen in the NHL, but a second Stanley Cup on the CV’s of Crosby and Malkin is looking ever more likely.
