The postseason is a time for folk heroes, so enter Jake Guentzel.
The Penguins rookie forward had played just 40 NHL games before these playoffs, but he has emerged with a historic run to lead the league with 12 postseason goals. That has been highlighted by consecutive game-winning tallies in Games 1 and 2 of the Stanley Cup finals, giving his team a 2-0 lead over the Predators in the best-of-seven contest going into Game 3 in what will be a raucous Nashville atmosphere on Saturday night.
“It’s crazy,” Guentzel told reporters in Pittsburgh after Game 2 on Wednesday, when his goal 10 seconds into the third period broke a 1-1 tie en route to a 4-1 victory. “You can’t even put into words what it feels like.”
Guentzel, 22, is a wide-eyed kid out of Omaha, Neb., with a mess of short blond hair, who played three years at the University of Nebraska-Omaha after he was drafted by the Penguins in the third round (No. 77 overall) in 2013. He played the most of the past two seasons at AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, showing his skill with 21 goals and 42 points in just 33 games before being called up mid-season.
And even his NHL debut was charmed, as he scored on the first two shots he took in a 5-2 loss to the Rangers in Pittsburgh last Nov. 21.
But he’s gone to another level in the playoffs. Guentzel now has five game-winning goals in 21 postseason games, setting a NHL rookie record while passing the mark set by Claude Lemieux (Canadiens, 1986) and Chris Drury (Avalanche, 1999). He is two goals short of the single-postseason rookie goal-scoring record of 14 set by the North Stars’ Dino Ciccarelli in 1981, and two points shy of Ciccarelli’s rookie scoring record of 21 points (matched by the Flyers’ Ville Leino in 2010). He already has eclipsed the postseason records for scoring by a US-born rookie, passing the 18-point mark set by Jeremy Roenick (Blackhawks, 1990) and Joe Mullen (Blues, 1982).
Guentzel is three goals clear of teammate Evgeni Malkin for the postseason lead, and no rookie has led the NHL outright in playoff goal-scoring since the league took control of the Stanley Cup in 1926-27. If it keeps up, Guentzel has to be in consideration for the Conn Smythe Trophy as postseason MVP.
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“I think he’s a conscientious kid,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “He’s a pleasure to coach.”
The emergence of Guentzel has allowed Sullivan to deploy a rather balanced scoring attack. It also helps that captain Sidney Crosby is down the middle, and he can help elevate all the players around him.
That includes Guentzel, who has gotten many shifts with Crosby at important times this postseason, and the Penguins have benefited.
“We tend to put a lot of the young guys next to Sid when they come up and join our team,” Sullivan said. “He’s such a great influence on them. I think the leadership that he provides, just those informal conversations are great for a young player. I think Sid has a really nice way of making those guys feel comfortable when they come into our dressing room.”
It helps that Crosby has his name engraved on the Stanley Cup twice, including last year. Becoming the first back-to-back champion since the 1997 and ’98 Red Wings is a distinct possibility, and if that happens, the Penguins will have a rookie folk hero to thank.
“We know the ultimate goal is two more wins,” Guentzel said. “Obviously they’re going to be tough to get.”
Fishy nonsense
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I understand the case made by animal-rights activists about throwing fish onto the ice in hockey games, but am I the only one who actually likes that bizarre tradition?
There were calls for the Detroit police to punish those who threw octopi on the ice during the final game at Joe Louis Arena, but people did it anyway — 35 times, actually. And now the Pittsburgh police not only arrested a Predators fan for tossing a catfish onto the ice in Game 1 of the Cup finals on Monday, but they charged him with disorderly conduct, disrupting a meeting and possession of an instrument of a crime. Dead catfish, gun, same thing, right?
The charges eventually were dropped, but why can’t we just let this weird thing continue?
Anyone hear the guarantee?
So Mark Messier says “We’ll Win Tonight,” and it becomes his lasting legacy (helped by him scoring a hat trick that 1994 Eastern Conference finals against the Devils, and his Rangers going on to win the Stanley Cup). P.K. Subban says after Game 2, “We’re going to win the next game,” and people are wondering if it’s a guarantee?
Undoubtedly, Subban guaranteed a Game 3 victory. But this comes on the heels of Malkin guaranteeing a victory before Game 6 of the Eastern Conference final last year against the Lightning (his team won, and then won the Cup), as well as Alex Ovechkin doing it before Game 7 of the 2015 second-round series against the Rangers in 2015, which Ovechkin and the Capitals lost.
I guess guarantees are just too common to matter anymore.
Stay tuned …
… to the lead-up to the Expansion Draft. The Vegas Golden Knights will announce whom they picked from each of the 30 NHL teams on June 21 during the league award ceremony. But Monday, June 12, is the deadline for teams to ask players to waive no-move clauses to be exposed, and June 15 is the beginning of the buy-out period. By 5 p.m. on June 17, every team has to submit its protection list, and by 10 a.m. on the morning of June 21, Vegas general manager George McPhee will submit the list of his new team to the league.
Should be interesting how things leak out during that time, and how players who were exposed and not drafted react.
Parting shot
Doc Emrick and Pierre McGuire filmed their trip to Primanti Brothers, the famous sandwich shop in Pittsburgh. The highlight is Doc doing play-by-play for the guy making the sandwich. He can pretty much call anything and make it sound good, even a sandwich with french fries on it.