Cole Penguins’ Unsung Hero

He doesn’t have the highest profile among Penguins’ defensemen. Nor the greatest potential.

Perhaps the highest pain threshold. Indeed, while his defensive mates have fallen to the right and left, Ian Cole’s stood in the breach each and every game since the start of the regular season. Seventy-seven and counting.

Durable as scrap iron. Steady as the Rock of Gibraltar among the shifting sands of injury.

All the more remarkable considering the Notre Dame grad’s style of play. Gritty, involved. Third in the league with 186 blocked shots—a franchise record—and tops among black-and-gold blueliners with 151 hits entering today’s action.

You get the picture. His bruises have bruises.

Yet the sturdy 219-pounder shrugs ‘em off and keeps on knockin.’ His plus-25 rating? Tied for 11th in the league, with teammate Conor Sheary. Ian’s flashed a little offense as well, establishing new career highs with 21 assists and 26 points.

The very definition of an unsung hero. Described by Wiktionary as “One who does great deeds but receives little or no recognition for them.”

Emerging along the way as a solid, two-way stalwart and go-to-guy on the penalty kill. A lofty status few would have envisioned, entering the campaign.

After all, it was only last January (2016) that coach Mike Sullivan sat Cole for a month after the Ann Arbor native struggled to mesh with the team’s up-tempo style. An all-too-familiar occurrence for the outgoing rearguard, who frequently filled a depth role with St. Louis before being acquired by Pens GM Jim Rutherford at the 2015 trade deadline for Robert Bortuzzo and a seventh-round pick.

Still, the unplanned break seemed to help. Keeping a positive attitude, Cole bided his time in the press box before being reinstated by Sullivan during a 4-3 victory over Buffalo last February 21. Rejuvenated, Ian registered 53 hits, 42 blocked shots and a plus-14 over his final 25 regular-season games, along with eight assists.

“You see when the confidence is there versus when the confidence is completely shot,” noted the popular defender. “There’s a huge difference.”

He continued to gain Sullivan’s trust while manning a third-pairing slot beside fellow reclamation project Justin Schultz during last season’s march to the Cup. Enjoying a rare moment in the sun, No. 28 struck for the opening goal in the pivotal Game 4 victory over San Jose in the Finals. His lone tally of the season.

Opening 2016-17 in a similar role, the duo soon were elevated to top-pairing status. Thanks, in part, to Cole’s physical, meat-and-potatoes style—not to mention an innate ability to read and react to each other.

“I think ‘Schultzy’ and I have developed this chemistry where you see a play happen, and you read it and you both come to the same conclusion before you even start talking through it,” Cole said.

Although the team’s recent spate of injuries forced Sullivan to break up his golden pairing for a while, the former first-round pick of the Blues continues to garner favorable results by keeping the game simple.

“I close (on puck carriers) as quick as I can and get the puck back to our unbelievable group of forwards as fast as I can, and then get up and support them,” Cole told Bill West of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Flashy? No. Effective? Yes.

Can’t imagine where we’d be without him.