Hi, this is Fred Wallace with ” Off the Wire. “
The Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup on Sunday night, blanking the Nashville Predators 2-0 to win the best of 7 NHL Championship 4 games to 2.
The victory gives Pittsburgh back to back Stanley Cups; the first team to do so since the Detroit Red Wings in 1997 & 1998.
Which to a large extent illustrates many facets of NHL Hockey and Stanley Cup competition.
Understand that many of us grew up watching Montreal win 4 straight Stanley Cups in the late 70’s, followed by 4 straight Islander championships in the early 1980’s and then 5 Cups in 7 years for the Edmonton Oilers. The dynasty years are dinosaur like in today’s NHL.
Plus, in today’s NHL, everyone has a shot.
The Predators entered the Stanley Cup after a 94 point regular season- the lowest seed of the 16 clubs to qualify for the post season.
And yet, had Nashville had a better performance in Game 5 of the series at Pittsburgh, we might be heading to a Game 7.
With a Stanley Cup pedigree and top end talent , Pittsburgh will get some consideration for a 3-peat, but more likely somebody else, maybe anybody else, will be the Stanley Cup Champion next year.
I’m Fred Wallace