Predators dominate Penguins, but Game 1 slips away in a few minutes

Joe Rexrode , USA TODAY NETWORK -- Tennessee
http://www.tennessean.com/sports/predators/
May 29, 2017



Jake Guentzel #59 of the Pittsburgh Penguins scores the game-winning goal as Pekka Rinne #35 of the Nashville Predators defends during the third period in Game One of the 2017 NHL Stanley Cup Final at PPG Paints Arena on May 29, 2017 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

PITTSBURGH — After a game like that you ask what is missing, and you try to figure out if you can find it.

The answer for the Nashville Predators — just a few lost minutes. That’s all it takes.

The Pittsburgh Penguins, Stanley Cup Final graybeards and defending champs, welcomed the Nashville Predators to the big stage Monday by beating them 5-3 on it. This even though the Penguins were mostly dominated on it.

"We got a favorable result tonight, but we know we need to be much better to get where we need to go,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “None of us in the dressing room are fooled by the score tonight.”

But they’ll sure take it. Game 1 saw a tremendous start for the Predators, halted by a couple of killer calls, followed by a brief Penguins onslaught, followed by a Predators comeback from a three-goal deficit to tie, followed by Predators threats to lead, followed by Pittsburgh’s first shot on goal in 37 minutes.

Jake Guentzel, quick look on Pekka Rinne, blast, goal, 3:17 left. An empty netter followed and the Predators’ first trip to this place ended in a strange and regretful way.

Rinne gave up four goals on just 11 shots. Though he had no chance on a couple and though it’s difficult to face nothing for so long and stay sharp, his best game is one thing the Predators need to find.

“When it’s a night you’re not facing a lot of shots, it is different, but at the end of the day, my job is to make the save,” Rinne said. “And at the end of the game, I’m disappointed I couldn’t help my team.”

And yes, the officiating hurt that team. But the Predators can’t let calls derail them as they seemed to Monday. That was a big part of this result, and for the first time in this postseason, they trail in a series.

For the first time, the Predators did not start a series by winning Game 1 on the road. For the first time, it’s Nashville, not the sucker-punched opponent, that has to come up with a response. It’s Peter Laviolette, not the other guy, who must adjust.

“I thought our guys played great,” Laviolette said. “We hate the score, we hate the result, but we move forward.”

And they don’t need more help for the Penguins. It was 1-0 Predators on a P.K. Subban blast just seven minutes into a game they were controlling. But Sullivan challenged the play and officials overturned the goal, saying Filip Forsberg was offside.

He was, I think. His back skate appeared to be just off the ice before the puck fully crossed the line. But then, I had a hard time telling for certain on the replay.

I do know the review of something that had nothing to do with the actual scoring play is ridiculous and made the NHL look bad on a night it doesn’t want to look bad, but that’s a discussion for another time. Unfortunately for the Predators, officials then saw a Calle Jarnkrok trip that never happened and missed a Sidney Crosby interference right before Evgeni Malkin’s 5-on-3 blast that leaked past Rinne.

So, bad breaks. You have to respond to them.

“Changed the course of that game,” Laviolette said of that sequence, but it didn’t have to change it that much.

You can’t let them stifle your attack while the other team gets a second goal on a turnover and wide-open net, and a third on a wacky bounce off your defenseman (Mattias Ekholm). You can’t go from 0-0 to down 3-0 in a span of 4:11.

To the Predators’ credit, they responded to that horrific first-period finish with a terrific second, and they outplayed the Penguins for all but the last half of the first period.

Colton Sissons and Ryan Ellis had power-play goals, and Austin Watson made a monster play to set up Frederick Gaudreau for the equalizer. The Predators needed to make one more.

“This team just doesn’t give up,” said Nashville captain Mike Fisher, who returned to the lineup after a two-game absence and got his first point of the postseason. “That being said, that’s a good hockey team — we’ve got to find a way to get wins.”

They don’t need more rest. Nashville was the fresher team entering this final series, a week removed from eliminating the Ducks. The Penguins had to go double-overtime in Thursday’s Game 7 to finally shed Ottawa.

Nashville entered the Anaheim series with a similar edge in mental and physical freshness and used it to win Game 1. Not this time. So maybe all that missing experience really matters.

The Penguins came in with 171 Stanley Cup Final games played among their team members. The Predators came in with five, all from Fisher when he got to the final round with the Ottawa Senators in 2007.

They’ve got some experience now. And it wasn't especially enjoyable, even though for a minute there it looked like this might end up the most stirring win of this entire run. Which brings up the one thing the Predators lack that they might have in abundance soon enough.

Think about the road to get here. The strongly disliked Chicago Blackhawks. The not-especially-liked St. Louis Blues. The need-another-word-for-hated Anaheim Ducks.

Pittsburgh is a team the Predators see twice a year. Skilled, fast, celebrated but not especially nasty.

There’s no natural hostility here. But that’s something I think the Predators can find. Especially if the Penguins keep beating them like they did Monday, a four-minute knockout out of nowhere.

Contact Joe Rexrode at jrexrode@tennessean.com and follow him on Twitter @joerexrode.

►RELATED: Preds rally but stumble at Game 1 finish

►RELATED: Laviolette has no time for your Stanley Cup shenanigans

Predators took a hands-off approach to Crosby, and it almost worked in Game 1

David FlemingESPN Senior Writerhttp://www.espn.com/nhl/May 30, 2017

Sidney Crosby #87 of the Pittsburgh Penguins takes a shot against Mattias Ekholm #14 of the Nashville Predators in Game One of the NHL Stanley Cup Final at PPG Paints Arena on May 29, 2017 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Justin K. Aller/NHLI via Getty Images)

PITTSBURGH -- Back when he was the coach of the Philadelphia Flyers, I asked Peter Laviolette to help me with a story about hockey scrums. We were standing in the narrow hallway outside his office, and after several minutes -- when it became clear I wasn't understanding the basic human quality that fuels retaliation -- Laviolette slowly but sternly grabbed two fistfuls of my shirt and pushed me backward down the hallway.

"Now, what do you feel like doing?" he asked.

"I kinda feel like punching you in the nose," I remember replying.

"EXACTLY!" Laviolette exclaimed, like a proud professor. "Now you understand scrums."

With that awesome exchange in mind, I traveled to Pittsburgh on Monday for Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final, pretty much just to see what horrors awaited Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby at the hands of the defense-led, scrappy, F-bomb-dropping Laviolette-coached Nashville Predators now within arm's reach of the hoisting the Cup.

After all, the concept of tenderizing an unstoppable talent dates back to the Hack-a-Shaq days, and in the last round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, the outmatched Ottawa Senators rode their own version of the strategy -- let's call it Slash-a-Sid -- all the way to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final.

And I must say, it was a breathtakingly brutal display of bullying that, really, only those among us who grew up with big brothers can fully appreciate. Ottawa hit Crosby with an endless, organized onslaught of abuse. They grabbed, elbowed, tripped, shoved, pushed, pulled, eye-gouged, taunted, face-washed, smothered and, well, just flat-out sat on Crosby on nearly every shift. And somehow, through it all, Crosby kept his cool, categorizing the abuse like a Delta House pledge as nothing "out of the ordinary."

What his answer sounded like to me is: Thank you, sir, may I have another?

The Senators complied, hitting Sid with every dirty trick in the book, and when that didn't work, they just started inventing stuff that would make the Hanson brothers blush. At one point, Ottawa's Marc Methot poked the Pens captain in the right shoulder with his stick like he was trying to make a Crosby kebob, while behind him on the Senators bench, Mike Hoffman squirted half the contents of his water bottle into Sid's gloves.

As you might know, hockey players are kind of obsessive about their gloves, especially the inside, and trust me, there's nothing worse than playing with a soggy, smelly mitt. What the Senators were forced to resort to with Crosby was cheap and dirty and, well, admit it, kinda awesome too. This is what most of us love about hockey -- the ruthless, inventive, hilarious, nonstop action that often takes place far away from the puck.

Of course, let's not pretend that Crosby is entirely innocent in all this. He occasionally gives out much (much) worse than he takes -- and for the most part, the refs seem to look the other way. In late March, Crosby speared the Buffalo Sabres' Ryan O'Reilly between the legs from behind so hard, O'Reilly crumpled to the ground like a dynamited building. Days later, Crosby practically slashed off Methot's pinky finger, a gruesome injury that so enraged Senators owner Eugene Melnyk that he suggested Crosby should sit until Methot healed, or grew his pinky back, I guess.

So you can see my thinking in anticipation of Game 1: If that was the level of discourse and violence between the Senators and Crosby then, dear god, what kind of exquisite uber-violence was in store in the Final?

Before Monday, the Slash-a-Sid strategy had become so renowned that Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford had called it "disgusting" and demanded the league do something to protect its star. Heck, even commissioner Gary Bettman was asked about the abuse the face of his league had taken so far in the playoffs, and, to the shock of no one, he just kinda shrugged his shoulders and said, Ya know, the playoffs are physical.

So when the game started, I was ready. I had my binoculars out and a chart set up to tally Slash-a-Sid stats with categories that included "Slash," "Head shot," "Xcheck," "Face" and the most delicious: "Other."

And midway through the first period, my stupid little chart was empty.

Completely blank.

By the time the Penguins were up 3-0, after surviving a sluggish start, the most contact Crosby had to endure was the fist-bump, flyby celebration after each Pittsburgh goal. At that point, Crosby was skating full shifts without even being touched. I'm not exaggerating for effect here. He was untouched. Not a check, not a slash, not so much as a dirty look from the Preds' defense. Several times, in fact, I even saw Nashville players jump out of the way to avoid hitting Crosby.

Honestly, at this point it looked like Laviolette's strategy was to kill Crosby with kindness. But it turns out the old coach was just teaching me -- and the hockey world -- yet another valuable lesson.

Because right about this time, the Penguins' offense disappeared for, oh, just about 37 minutes. And during what is a veritable Ice Age in hockey time, it became crystal clear (at least to ESPN's Tal Pinchevsky, who explained it to me in the press box): The Senators and the rest of the NHL slashed and grabbed and cheap-shotted Crosby because they had to.

The Predators' skilled and speedy in-your-face defense is so talented and confident, it doesn't need to resort to that stuff.

So forget the glorious violence of Slash-a-Sid.

I think we might actually have a series for the ages here, folks, and that's way more exciting.

In the end, the only abuse Crosby faced was self-inflicted. With the Pens up 3-1, Crosby slid hard into the net during a breakaway. After flying under goalie Pekka Rinne and into the post, the Preds' Ryan Ellis even made sure Crosby was OK. With his face full of ice mist, a shocked and slightly disturbed Crosby seemed to nod and say to Ellis, "I'm OK, I'm OK."

But the truth is, Crosby was anything but unscathed.

He ended up with two assists, but his team's offense was held to 12 shots, which is the lowest total in the Final since, well, since they invented the "shot on net" stat in 1958, back when I'm pretty sure they used chain-link fence instead of Plexiglas above the boards. During the 37-minute, shotless epoch on Monday, a radio play-by-play guy behind me yelled into his mic: "Pittsburgh might get a standing ovation if they could just get a shot on net at this point."

And after the Pens' 5-3 victory, everyone from coach Mike Sullivan to center Nick Bonino to Crosby himself acknowledged that even though they won the game, Nashville's defense shook them to their core.

"We weren't very good," said Sullivan. "None of us in our dressing room are fooled by the result tonight."

Sitting at his locker with a sweat-stained cap on and black sneakers without socks, Crosby looked subdued and far different than he has at any other time during the playoffs.

The Predators barely laid a finger on him the entire game.

But Crosby looked far more frustrated, upset and worried than he has after any other bout of Slash-A-Sid.

Penguins' Malkin and Crosby push each other to be better

BY STEVE SIMMONS, TORONTO SUN

http://www.torontosun.com/

May 28, 2017

Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin (Gene J. Puskar/AP)

PITTSBURGH — This is how it works with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.

“It’s a good competition between me and Sid,” the usually quiet Malkin said. “It’s like, Sid scores, I want to score two.

“Sid scores one more, I want to score one more.

“Sid scores a hat trick, I stop.”

The crowd surrounding Geno Malkin on media day at the Stanley Cup laugh along with the big Pittsburgh centre. The other centre, at the next podium, not as big, not as funny, the bigger name, the bigger star, hears the laughter and looks around.

“That’s Geno,” said Crosby, “he’s a laid-back guy but he’s pretty funny.”

Why not laugh and smile and enjoy life if you’re Crosby and Malkin. They have been teammates for 11 seasons in Pittsburgh. They have won two Stanley Cups together, lost another. This is now a legacy opportunity for them: A chance for a third Stanley Cup.

Win this Cup and it’s one better than owner Mario Lemieux won as a superstar player. Win this Cup and it’s one fewer than Wayne Gretzky won in Edmonton. Win this Cup and it ties Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane in the salary cap era with three titles. Win this Cup and it’s the first back-to-back NHL champion in almost 20 years.

Malkin leads the playoffs in scoring. Crosby is second. They have both won Conn Smythe Trophies. Crosby has two Hart Trophies, Malkin one. Malkin has a Calder Trophy, Crosby doesn’t. They each have two scoring titles. It goes back and forth that way, these great hockey gifts who came in consecutive NHL drafts.

“One day Pittsburgh Penguins draft me,” said Malkin “One day they draft Sidney Crosby. It’s two lucky days.”

Lucky to be here, to be together, to be the 1-2 punch nobody in hockey can compare with. This isn’t anything close to a perfect Penguins team. The two legacy centres though — the one who made the Top 100 list and the one who was somehow left off — are the test for the Nashville (no centre) Predators. And they feed off each other, not just with lines off the ice, but with a daily drive they each demonstrate in their own and very different way.

“Like Gretzky said one day about (Mark) Messier. Small competition every day between him and Messier. Who’s better today? Who’s better tomorrow? I don’t want to be like No. 1 (centre) in Carolina or something like that. Not that I want to say bad things about Carolina,” Malkin said. “I want to be better than Sid. I want to be better every day. Every practice, he is the most professional player I have ever seen. He wants to be better every day.”

And still this hockey obsessed town is more about Lemieux than anyone else. His name is on statues, buildings, scholarships, awards. No one can ever be a larger figure than Mario. That’s what makes this week so remarkable and potentially historic. In this hockey town where the franchise was built by Lemieux and saved by Lemieux, Crosby and Malkin could well surpass him.

Malkin disagrees.

“If I win one more, Mario wins one more,” he said. “He’d have four (actually five, two as player, three as owner). I’ll never beat him. I can’t. I don’t think about that. Mario is a hero here. We’re all proud of Mario. Amazing player, amazing guy.”

Jim Rutherford inherited Crosby and Malkin when he signed on as general manager of the Penguins. Half of the teams in the NHL are searching for a first-line centre. He has two of the best.

“With Sid and Geno, they are carving out very special legacies for themselves,” he said. “Let’s take it back a step. Winning one Stanley Cup is unbelievable. It’s very hard to win one. Now these guys have two. They have a chance to win another one. And in my opinion, they have a chance to win maybe another one after that. It’s not like they’re slowing down.”

Crosby is known for his concussion history but it is Malkin who has been hurt more the past four seasons. Crosby has only missed 16 games the past four years; the larger, thicker Malkin has averaged 20 lost games a season. But both are healthy now, and ready for the challenge of the Predators.

“It’s going to be hard,” Malkin said.

That’s what he said about this series with Nashville. He wasn’t being sportsmanlike. He called it “the biggest challenge of my life.

“I’ve never played a team that had six good defenceman. Usually, it’s like one pair. This is hard for us. A good challenge for me, for Sid.”

And if he has to play 1A to Crosby’s 1, well, Malkin is happy to play that part.

“I feel like I’m the guy here,” said Malkin with a giant, playful smile. “People love me. I come to restaurants, people want to shake hands. It’s fine for me. I signed a big deal here because I feel we can win every year. I want to play with Sid a long time ... I’m lucky to play on a team with Sidney Crosby.”

And the ever polite and focused Crosby says he’s lucky to play on a team with Geno Malkin.

Sidney Crosby (87) and Evgeni Malkin (71) pose with the the Prince of Wales Trophy in Pittsburgh, Thursday, May 25, 2017. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

WATCH AND LEARN

Matt Cullen doesn’t so much practice with the Pittsburgh Penguins as watch them practice. And why wouldn’t he?

He likes to fixate on Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin when they practice. He’s rather amazed by his front-line teammates, what they do, and how hard they push themselves, how they test the limits of their immense talents.

“I’ve been around long enough to know there’s not a lot of guys like that,” said the 40-year-old fourth-line centre.

With Crosby, though, Cullen is impressed with sense of the occasion.

“He can sense where he’s at and he has this real grasp of the history of the game,” said Cullen. “Sid’s a guy who loves the game more than anybody else. And he follows it more closely than anybody. He, more than anybody, understands the position we’re in.”

Malkin isn’t so easily defined, although now that he’s married and with a young son, he is showing a more mature side of himself.

“It’s a personality thing,” said Cullen. “They’re different people. Geno is a little bit more of a laid back guy. But in saying that, when the game starts, that guy is as competitive as it gets.”

Malkin leads the playoffs with 24 points. Crosby has 20. Combined, the four Nashville centres have scored 15 points in the post-season.

PENGUINS EXPECT CROSBY ABUSE TO CONTINUE, BUT THEY'RE GROWING TIRED OF IT

By: Ken Campbell
http://www.thehockeynews.com/
May 28, 2017


Sidney Crosby #87 of the Pittsburgh Penguins and Marc Methot #3 of the Ottawa Senators fall to the ice after colliding during the second period in Game Six of the Eastern Conference Final during the 2017 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at Canadian Tire Centre on May 23, 2017 in Ottawa, Canada. (Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)


PITTSBURGH – Trust us when we say this. The Pittsburgh Penguins, from high-profile owner and former superstar Mario Lemieux on down, have pleaded with the NHL to do something to protect star players. Not just their own star players, but all star players. And the response from the league has pretty much been constant. So that development, combined with the fact that Sidney Crosby has received more abuse in these playoffs than ever – and that’s saying something – you can go to the bank betting on the Penguins to beef up their brawn and the expense of their skill and their brains this summer.

It’s actually been disheartening to see how much abuse Crosby has had to endure this playoff. Lots of people had a nice little chuckle when Mike Hoffman of the Ottawa Senators sprayed Crosby with water from the bench, a move that made the NHL look like a beer league. No penalty, no fine and no recriminations to a player who embarrassed himself and his league. And you can probably expect more of the same, at least in terms of a physical going over, from the Nashville Predators when the Stanley Cup final begins Monday night. Why? Because they can. The NHL will allow them to do it.

The Penguins will finally fight back. And the NHL will be lesser for it.

“I hear year after year how the league and everyone loves how the Penguins play,” said Penguins GM Jim Rutherford. “ ‘They play pure hockey and they skate.’ Well, now it’s going to have to change and I feel bad about it, but it’s the only way we can do it. We’re going to have to get one or two guys…and some of these games that should be just good hockey games will turn into a sh—show. We’ll go right back to where we were in the ’70s and it’s really a shame.”

Somewhere along the line, the NHL became comfortable with the notion that star players – the ones with more natural skill, more drive and more of a willingness to sacrifice – could be neutralized by inferior players who stepped outside the confines of the NHL rulebook. It’s become a part of hockey culture and it’s basically become an accepted principle. The NHL is pretty much alone in this approach and almost seems to wear it as a badge of honor. “I’ve watched it ever since I got here almost every game,” Rutherford said. “He gets this on a regular basis. Some of the stuff that goes on on a regular basis, it’s really disgusting.”

As Rutherford pointed out, Wayne Gretzky did not have to deal with that kind of abuse, perhaps in part because he had Dave Semenko watching over him. Bobby Orr received all kinds of shots from players because he had something of an edge to his game and Gordie Howe gave every bit as much as he received. But you watch a game where Johnny Gaudreau takes 20 slashes to his hand before the 21stbreaks his finger and you wonder why the league allows it. Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel and Auston Matthews are in for much of the same over the next couple of years.

“The league has got to fix it,” Rutherford said. “In other leagues, they protect star players. In basketball, they don’t let their top players get abused. And in our league, well the thing I keep hearing is, ‘That’s hockey. That’s hockey,’ No, it’s not.”

Kyle Turris #7 of the Ottawa Senators collides with Sidney Crosby #87 of the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game Six of the Eastern Conference Final during the 2017 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at Canadian Tire Centre on May 23, 2017 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Andre Ringuette/NHLI via Getty Images)

For his part, Crosby has displayed a remarkable amount of restraint, particularly in the playoffs this spring. He has been whistled for just one retaliation minor in 18 games – a slashing call on Hoffman during the Ottawa series – and has picked up just two penalties so far in this year’s playoffs. In last year’s run to the Stanley Cup, Crosby picked up just four PIM in 24 games, pretty much turning the notion that he’s a crybaby on its ear. Should he have more PIM? Yes, absolutely. He should have received a major, not to mention a suspension, for almost taking Marc Methot's finger off with a slash and for spearing Ryan O'Reilly in the pills. Crosby is no saint to be sure, but we're willing to bet he gets a lot more than he gives.

“Yeah, it’s a challenge,” Crosby acknowledged. “That’s the challenge of playing in the playoffs. I guess you understand that after going through different experiences…that’s the way it is. It’s not always easy to accept that, but at the end of the day, you have to and you can’t get caught up in it and ultimately it’s about winning games. Getting caught up in that and getting frustrated isn’t going to lead to winning games. That’s kind of my motivation as far as staying focused. You just can’t allow yourself to get too caught up in that regardless of how bad it gets. You just have to keep going.”

It has been a growing process for Crosby. He will be the first to admit it. He had 110 penalty minutes in his rookie season and 24 this past season, the lowest full-season total of his career. The ability to be able to skate away has been one that has been cultivated over a decade.

“You can’t expect somebody to be ready for that and just go through with flying colors,” Crosby said. “It doesn’t mean you’re going to be perfect. You’re going to lose your composure sometimes, but if you understand that can go a long way to having success, it makes you better."

The Stanley Cup Favorite Penguins Aren’t Counting Their Chickens

By Chris Adamski
https://www.nytimes.com/sports
May 26, 2017



Sidney Crosby #87 of the Pittsburgh Penguins talks with Phil Kessel #81 as he holds the Prince of Wales Trophy after winning Game Seven of the Eastern Conference Final against the Ottawa Senators during the 2017 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at PPG PAINTS Arena on May 25, 2017 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the Ottawa Senators with a score of 3 to 2. (Photo by Jamie Sabau/Getty Images)


PITTSBURGH — If reaching the Stanley Cup finals in consecutive years by the age of 21 left Sidney Crosby feeling naïve about the magnitude of the accomplishment, the eight-year wait before it happened again made it abundantly clear.

Crosby’s Pittsburgh Penguins became the first team to defend a conference championship since they and the Detroit Red Wings met in consecutive Cup finals in 2008 and 2009.

Next, the Penguins will try to become first team to win back-to-back Stanley Cups since the Red Wings of 1997 and 1998. Pittsburgh hosts Game 1 of the finals against the Nashville Predators on Monday.

“You hear the talk about how difficult it is to get back to the finals two years in a row, and then you start to see it firsthand,” Crosby said after the Penguins’ 3-2 double-overtime victory against the Ottawa Senators in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals Thursday night.

“Number One, how hard it is to stay healthy and for things to go right, to get those plays constantly,” he said. “Every series, you look at how the margin for error is so slim.”

A bad bounce, a missed penalty call or a botched save over the final 30-plus minutes of play on Thursday, and Pittsburgh would have been packing up on Friday, reflecting on its season and looking ahead to 2017-18.

Instead, the Penguins are on the cusp of joining some elite company.

A series victory over Nashville would give Pittsburgh its fifth Stanley Cup, tying it with the Edmonton Oilers and the Chicago Blackhawks for fifth on the league list. The only teams to claim as many as five Stanley Cups since the Penguins entered the N.H.L. in 1967 are the Oilers (five) and the Montreal Canadiens (10).

Each of Pittsburgh’s championships has come since 1991, and no other team has claimed five Stanley Cups in that span. The Red Wings and the Penguins are the only N.H.L. teams to win six conference championships during the past three decades.

“We’ve got a group of veteran players,” Penguins Coach Mike Sullivan said, “and I think they have a certain perspective that they understand the opportunity to play this deep and compete for the Stanley Cup doesn’t come around every year. And when it does, when a team like ours puts itself in the position like we have, we have to maximize this opportunity.”

Crosby became the youngest captain to win a Stanley Cup in 2009, two months before his 22nd birthday. Also at stake during the next few weeks is a chance to join seven others who have captained a team to at least three Stanley Cups since the 1967 expansion that doubled the N.H.L.’s size.

Aside from Jonathan Toews, who is still active, each of the others (Jean Beliveau, Yvan Cournoyer, Denis Potvin, Wayne Gretzky, Steve Yzerman and Scott Stevens) is in the Hall of Fame.

While acutely aware of hockey history in private, Crosby is loath to publicly emphasize his personal place in it.

“You just think of it as a great opportunity,” Crosby said of this latest finals appearance. “This is what you work hard for all year, to give yourself a chance to play. And this situation is not something that happens very often.”

Pittsburgh can become the first team in the salary-cap era (since the 2004-05 lockout) to win consecutive titles.

Counting the regular season and the playoffs, the Penguins have played 207 games during the past 20 months. Early in the series against Ottawa, fatigue appeared to be setting in. But Pittsburgh finished the series strong, winning three of four and outshooting the Senators in each.

Las Vegas sports books have installed the Penguins as favorites against Nashville, which won just half its regular-season games and had the worst record of any playoff team.

Playing down the possible historical milestones, the Penguins said their motivation is more personal. Wing Carl Hagelin, for example, said that he had found inspiration on Thursday in his 40-year-old teammate, Matt Cullen.

“I remember sitting next to Cully on the bench and just thinking, ‘This is not the way he’s going to go out; we’re going to win this game,’” Hagelin said. “He deserves that.”

The second-oldest Penguins regular, Chris Kunitz, 37, is the only player in the finals who can earn his fourth championship ring. In his ninth season with Pittsburgh and in the final year of his contract, Kunitz said short-term relationships, not longevity, were driving him.

“You never know if you’re going to play on this ice again with this team, so you’ve got to make sure you make that last as long as you can,” said Kunitz, who scored two goals, including the game-winner, on Thursday. “It’s not a lot of fun thinking about the future when you want to be here and you want to be playing with your teammates.”

He added: “So I’m happy that it’s not over for us yet. We’ve got another challenge in front of us. And another chance to win another Cup.”