B2B Rewind: Old rivals

This article is an abbreviated excerpt from the book: Pittsburgh Penguins Back-to-Back Champions. This article is part four of a 12-part series complimenting AT&T SportsNet's re-airing of the 2016 and '17 Stanley Cup Final victories by the Penguins.
Click here for AT&T SportsNet's re-air schedule.
Click here to view all 2016 Stanley Cup Final rewind coverage.

If somebody told you on March 11 that the key to the Pittsburgh Penguins enjoying sustained postseason success was an injury to Evgeni Malkin, there is no chance you would have believed them.
Heading into that afternoon affair against the Columbus Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena, Pittsburgh owned a tenuous hold on the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, and the Penguins were losers of three of their last five games. Common sense said that the last thing Mike Sullivan's club needed was to subtract its second-highest scorer.
But the Penguins did lose Malkin that afternoon, as his awkward collision behind the Blue Jackets net with Dalton Prout resulted in an elbow injury that would shelve Malkin indefinitely, an absence that would extend all the way to the second game of Pittsburgh's opening-round series against the New York Rangers.
One of the ideas Sullivan had when he took over in December to "create competitive balance" with his offensive talent was to spread Malkin, Sidney Crosby and Phil Kessel on three separate lines. Ideally, that configuration would have had Kessel skating on the wing next to Nick Bonino.
But as Sullivan noted, that idea "didn't quite resonate at first, and as a result it didn't work early on."
Malkin's injury changed the lineup's dynamic, as it necessitated Bonino slotting into the opening between Kessel and Carl Hagelin. To say there was instant chemistry would be a lie, but the Penguins stuck with the trio. They finally broke through for two goals - one each by Kessel and Bonino - in their third game together on March 17 against Carolina.
Nine days later, the Detroit Red Wings had no answer for what was then simply called the 'second line.' That afternoon at Joe Louis Arena, Kessel and Bonino each had five points, and Hagelin scored twice, as the unit tallied four of Pittsburgh's seven goals in a 7-2 shellacking.
By the time Malkin was ready to return for Game 2 against the Rangers, there was no way Sullivan could break up the still nickname-less trio of Hagelin, Bonino and Kessel, which had combined for 17 goals and 45 points in its 16 games together.
"When 'Geno' got hurt, Phil had to play with 'Bones' out of necessity," Sullivan said. "That's when that line thrived. It created that balance that we originally talked about as a coaching staff that was going to make us more difficult to play against as a group."
With each goal the Hagelin-Bonino-Kessel unit scored, its popularity around Pittsburgh soared. Because all great lines need an equally catchy moniker, it came as little surprise when the term "HBK Line" spread like wildfire throughout western Pennsylvania as the playoffs progressed.
"HBK" was a nod to professional wrestling legend Shawn Michaels, who during his heyday in the WWE was dubbed "The Heart Break Kid," which matched nicely with the first letter in each linemate's last name - H(agelin), B(onino) and K(essel).

During the First Round of the 2016 Stanley Cup playoffs, the Penguins exorcised two years of postseason frustration by easily disposing a New York Rangers franchise that ended Pittsburgh's season each of the previous two years.
Now, it was the Penguins' turn to play the role of demon against the NHL's best team from the regular season, the Washington Capitals.
Before the Capitals drafted Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom to spur a franchise renaissance in the mid-2000s, Washington spent the 1990s entrenched in the thick of the Wales/Eastern Conference playoff field. Yet just about every time the Capitals appeared poised to take the next step toward a championship, they would run into a familiar Achilles' heel - the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Seven times between 1991 and 2001, the Pens and Caps squared off in the first or second round of the playoffs. Pittsburgh won six of those matchups.
The storyline continued when Crosby and Ovechkin faced off in an epic Eastern Conference Semifinals series in 2009, the one when both produced matching hat tricks in Washington's 4-3 win in Game 2 at the Verizon Center. Washington jumped in front 2-0 that year, but Pittsburgh rallied to win in seven games, finishing off the Caps with a crushing 6-2 road win in Game 7.
But 2016 was going to be different, so everyone said.
Under second-year coach Barry Trotz, the 2016 edition of the Washington Capitals became a two-way team. Ovechkin and Backstrom were still out of this world offensively. The duo was supplemented by 2014 United States Olympic hero T.J. Oshie, three-time Stanley Cup champion Justin Williams and breakout sensation Evgeny Kuznetsov.
Unlike past editions, the '16 Caps could also keep the puck out of their net, too. Braden Holtby had put together a magical season between the pipes, one that would result in him winning the Vezina Trophy as the league's top goaltender in June. In front of Holtby was a vastly improved group of blueliners, where ex-Penguins mainstays Brooks Orpik and Matt Niskanen joined John Carlson and Karl Alzner.
By this point of the playoffs, it had become widely accepted within the hockey world that the Penguins and Capitals were the two best teams in the league. However, for as dominant as the Penguins had begun playing under Sullivan, national pundits still favored the Caps.
Game 1 in Washington on April 28 did nothing to dispel that notion. As Caps fans "Rocked the Red" at the Verizon Center, the Penguins hung with the Capitals, but Pittsburgh and its rookie goaltender, Matt Murray, had no answer for Oshie. When Oshie just barely stuffed a wraparound behind Murray 9:33 into overtime to polish off a hat trick, the Capitals not only emerged 4-3 victors, but they quickly found themselves in familiar territory, historically, with a series lead over Pittsburgh.
Sensing that it probably wasn't prudent to dig a big hole against this Capitals team, the Penguins, to borrow a phrase from the legendary Mike Lange, came out "throwing everything plus the kitchen sink" Holtby's way, as he and Murray engaged in a goaltender's duel.
Just when you were getting the feeling that the scoreless deadlock could continue all evening, Hagelin broke through. Bonino emerged from a near-corner pileup, skated untouched around the back of the net and sent a perfect feed to the blade of an uncovered Hagelin just a few feet from the crease. Hagelin one-touched the pass over Holtby's glove.
A Marcus Johansson power-play strike minutes into the third period awoke the Caps' faithful, but those hearts were eventually broken by an old friend. Eric Fehr, signed by Penguins in a corresponding move the day of Bonino's acquisition, fought off an Orpik check in the slot to re-direct a Malkin feed off his backhand behind Holtby, a goal that secured a 2-1 victory that evened the series at 1-1.

"I was just going to the net," Fehr said. "I thought Geno was going to throw it toward the net. I was going to look for a rebound or some loose change in front. I just got a lucky tip on it."
After easing his way into NHL postseason play, it was now time for Murray to place his stamp on the series as it shifted north to the Steel City.
When Murray went to sleep on May 2, he could be forgiven if he saw Ovechkin firing shots at him in his dreams. Over the course of 60 minutes in Game 3, the Capitals, led by Ovechkin's seven shots and 18 attempts, launched 49 pucks that made their way to Murray, plus another 19 shots that were blocked, and 17 that misfired. Forty minutes in, the Pens owned a total of 14 shots against Holtby, while Murray needed to make 14 saves in each period.
It's no surprise with such a disparity that one team headed into the third period with a 3-0 lead over the other. Except it wasn't the Capitals in the driver's seat, as somehow against all odds, the Penguins were the club on top.
Washington finally broke Murray in the final frame, scoring twice, including a late score by Williams with just 56 seconds left. Yet it was too little, too late. Thanks to superb goaltending by Murray, and what would hold up as the game-winning goal from Hagelin, Pittsburgh had managed to rope-a-dope its way to a 2-1 series lead.
Afterward, Hall of Fame beat reporter, Dave Molinari, offer up probably the best description of Murray's efforts in his recap:
"Murray was named the game's No. 1 star. Probably wouldn't have been a bad idea to give him the Nos. 2 and 3, as well."
If Sullivan's squad was going to put a stranglehold on the series, they were going to have to do so under less-than-ideal circumstances. The team entered Game 4 with two of their best defensemen out of the lineup (Olli Maatta, injury; Kris Letang, suspension).
When Washington's Jay Beagle struck just 2:53 into Game 4, the sense was that the Capitals were going to easily go about tying the series. How could anyone not feel that way one game after Pittsburgh allowed 49 shots, and that was with Letang present.
Trevor Daley might as well have been wearing Letang's No. 58 on his back instead of Daley's familiar No. 6. Needing somebody to step up and assume the roughly 26 minutes per game Letang was handling, Daley was more than up for the challenge in what proved to be his greatest performance in a Penguins sweater.
Pittsburgh scored three goals in Game 4. Trevor Daley was on the ice when all three were scored. He scored the Penguins' first goal when his wrist shot off the rush was partially blocked by Alzner, but the puck kept squirting between traffic before rolling under Holtby, a goal you could hardly fault the Capitals' netminder for allowing.
Daley's tally halfway through the first period didn't just tie the score at 1-1, but it gave belief that in spite of a depleted defense, the Pens were going to be fine. The scored was all knotted at 2-2 at the end of regulation.
Standing at the right place at the right time, Patric Hornqvist ended the evening.
Conor Sheary partially fanned on his wrist shot from the left point, which caught Washington defenseman Mike Weber, making his series debut, off guard. Weber first deflected Sheary's shot towards the slot, then as he tried to recover, knocked the puck into the bottom of the opposite faceoff circle, where Hornqvist was standing. A quick flick of the wrists by Hornqvist sent the puck sailing between the legs of Holtby to give Pittsburgh a commanding 3-1 series lead.
"If we don't win that game, we might not win the series," Hornqvist said. "It's such a big difference to go up 3-1 versus it being 2-2. It's a very big difference in the playoffs."

That difference proved crucial when Washington, which felt it deserved a better fate during the two games in Pittsburgh, rebounded for a 3-1 victory in Game 5 back home at the Verizon Center.
After back-to-back quiet nights on the scoresheet, the "HBK Line" was due for a breakout. Slowly but surely, their moniker was beginning to pop up around town, first on social media, then the front of t-shirts. On May 10, the trio proved just how deserving they were of all the added attention.
By the 12:22 mark of the second period of Game 6, two goals from Kessel and a deft deflection by Hagelin had Pittsburgh cruising toward a meeting with the Tampa Bay Lightning thanks to a 3-0 lead.
Oshie provided the Capitals with life when he scored on a power play late in the middle frame to get Washington within two. What was at one point trending toward a laugher suddenly turned very intriguing in the third period when Williams lifted a shot over Murray's glove to lower the Capitals' deficit to one.
Not long after Williams' tally, things got weird. Really weird. Like never-before-seen weird.
Chris Kunitz attempted to loft what appeared to be a harmless backhanded clearing attempt high off the glass near the midway point of the third. The puck instead ended up in the crowd for a delay-of-game penalty.
As the Penguins were killing off the Kunitz minor, a scramble in front of Murray resulted in the puck flying off a body to the middle of the slot. Bonino was there in perfect position to swat the biscuit out of harm's way. Except out of harm's way meant into the crowd. A second-consecutive delay-of-game penalty gave the Caps a 54-second two-man advantage.
At the exact moment that Kunitz was stepping back onto the ice, Ian Cole pounced on a loose puck and fired it out of the zone. By now, you're probably catching onto the theme here, and instead of the puck landing the length of the ice near Holtby, it too went over the glass, and Washington was right back to a two-man advantage.
"That was pretty crazy, wasn't it?" Kessel said. "I don't think I've ever seen that."
Murray and the Pens were unable to continue dodging bullets. Carlson ripped a one-timer behind Murray, and all of a sudden, to the chagrin of a stunned crowd, the score was 3-3.
Amazingly, this disastrous turn of events only resulted in one goal - and even if that tally was the one that tied the score at 3-3 - the Penguins were more than happy to escape with minimal damage.
"What I loved about this group is their resilience," Sullivan told reporters afterward. "When we got to the overtime, we just talked to them in between periods about taking a deep breath. You can't change what just happened. You've got to let it go, and you've just got to play. These guys, to their credit, did an amazing job of not allowing any sort of ebbs and flows of the game (to affect them), and they might've been challenged the most all year tonight in the third period."
The Penguins came out flying in overtime, and before long, they were rewarded for their efforts.
"Kessel up with it there. Fed around in front. Hagelin right there with a shot. SCORE! It's over! … Lucky No. 13, Nick Bonino has ended the series for the Penguins."
You might also remember that magical moment as…
"Bonino the goal! Bonino the goal! Bonino the goal! BUH-NEE-NOOOO!!"

Regardless of whether it was NBC Sports Network's Doc Emrick or Harnarayan Singh from Hockey Night in Canada: Punjabi making the call, the result was the same. The Pittsburgh Penguins had once again ended the Washington Capitals' season in the most ruthless way possible.
A berth in the Eastern Conference Final was clinched. Nick Bonino was the toast of the town. And the letters H-B-K were about to take over the hockey world.
"I can't put it into words right now," Bonino said just moments after the biggest goal of his NHL career. "I've still got chills a little bit. Just coming off the ice and pounding everyone, it's a lot of fun. That's the best feeling in the game right there. To win a series and have your teammates around you in the corner, it's pretty fun."
Carl Hagelin, Nick Bonino and Phil Kessel combined for 56 points in the Stanley Cup playoffs, with 11 of those coming in the Final. Their peak performance was certainly Game 6 against the Capitals. We can quantify those numbers, but what we can't measure is how many new hockey fans they attracted as they tore through the playoffs.
And just think, all of that "HBK Line" fun never would have been had Evgeni Malkin not hurt his elbow against Columbus. It's funny, sometimes, how this great game of hockey can play out.
The article was edited and condensed by Sam Kasan.