Penguins Playoff Update: Let’s Hope History Doesn’t Repeat Itself

Buried deep within the Penguins’ glorious Game Five victory over the Predators on Thursday night is a most disturbing pattern. One I feel compelled to write about in hopes of dispelling any bad juju or lingering negative mojo.

Go back with me eight years, if you will, to June of 2009. Led by superstar Pavel Datsyuk and perennial Norris Trophy winner Nicklas Lidstrom, the powerhouse Detroit Red Wings were the kingpins of the hockey world. They’d defeated an up-and-coming but green Penguins team with relative ease in the 2008 Final to win the Stanley Cup, their second title in six years.

They seemed on the verge of capturing the crown a second year in a row. The veteran Wings, laden with a dozen players age 30 and over, beat the upstarts from the ‘Burgh by identical 3-1 scores in Games One and Two in the Motor City to get a giant leg up on the locals.

Following a power-play tally by bull-moose forward, Johan Franzen, the Wings grabbed an early 2-1 lead in Game Three. They seemed on the verge of sweeping our Pens out of the old Mellon Arena and onto Centre Avenue.

I’ll pull the needle off the vinyl and place it in the groove preceding this year’s Final. Seeking a second-straight Cup—and third in nine seasons—the Pens handily defeated Nashville at home in Games One and Two. With Preds goalie Pekka Rinne looking as rickety as an old wooden roller coaster, they grabbed the early lead in Game Three.

You see where I’m going with this, don’t you?

The 2009 Final and this spring’s Final are playing out in eerily similar fashion, only the roles are reversed. The Penguins…playing the part of then-defending champion Detroit…are hoping to add another Cup to their trophy case. The Preds…cast as the ’09 Pens…are the spoilers.

Back to ’09. The Pens rallied to win Game Three, thanks in part to a pair of goals from peppery but obscure French-Canadian forward Max Talbot. This year, the Preds rallied to win Game Three after Frederick Gaudreau—an equally unheralded French-Canadian forward—notched the go-ahead tally, his first of two game-winning goals in the series thus far.

In each instance, the underdog team won Game Four at home to even their respective series at two games apiece.

Which brings me to Game Five. With the series returning to the unfriendly confines of Joe Louis Arena, the ’09 Pens were annihilated by Detroit, 5-0. To protect his starting goalie from further abuse, then-Pens coach Dan Bylsma pulled a youthful Marc-Andre Fleury late in the second period.

Here’s an excerpt from the Associated Press recap of the game:

“After hearing how tired and beat up they were through four games of the Stanley Cup finals, the defending champions busted out with a devastating display of offense and defense and rolled to a 5-0 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday night that put them a win away from another championship.”

Gives you the willies, doesn’t it?

The AP writer could easily have been describing our present-day Pens following their jarring 6-0 stomping of Nashville two nights ago.

Did I mention Preds coach Peter Laviolette pulled Rinne in Game Five a la Bylsma-Fleury in ‘09?

I don’t know about you. But I find the similarities between the two series absolutely chilling, right down to the talk about how tired and banged up the Wings were in ’09.

We all know how that series turned out. Thanks to some miraculous last-second shot blocking by Rob Scuderi, the Pens won Game Six at home, forcing an epic Game Seven at “The Joe.”

Inspired by a text message from owner Mario Lemieux and sparked by two huge goals from the ubiquitous Talbot, the black and gold upset the mighty Wings to snatch a Stanley Cup from almost certain defeat.

Okay Buker. That’s a great story and all. But the current batch of Predators ain’t the ’09 Pens.

True. They don’t possess the firepower that Penguins team had with budding superstars Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. Still, it was the gritty son of a construction worker from a tiny town in Quebec who ultimately made the difference.

Let’s hope we don’t make a Game Seven hero out of Gaudreau.