B2B Rewind: Postseason March

This article is an abbreviated excerpt from the book: Pittsburgh Penguins Back-to-Back Champions. This article is part two 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.

Mike Sullivan's first principle of the Penguins' team identity is speed. But in order to play with speed, the Penguins needed fast players. The job of finding fast players fell on the shoulders of their general manager.
Even before Sullivan's arrival, Jim Rutherford wanted to improve upon his team's foot speed. In fact, it was his highest priority. It's one of the biggest reasons he traded for Phil Kessel from Toronto in the summer. But he didn't stop there.
Rutherford would completely change the makeup of the team over a three-month period from mid-December until the NHL's trade deadline on February 29.
Rutherford added, in order, defenseman Trevor Daley (Chicago), forward Carl Hagelin (Anaheim) and defenseman Justin Schultz (Edmonton). But to completely overhaul the team's swiftness, Rutherford only needed to look to northeastern Pennsylvania.
Young and eager legs were waiting in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. Some had been drafted by the Penguins and went through years within the system. Others were free agent castaways that found a home in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and earned their way up the ranks.

Those players were forwards Bryan Rust, Conor Sheary, Scott Wilson, Tom Kuhnhackl and Oskar Sundqvist, defenseman David Warsofsky and goaltender Matt Murray. The addition of the young players helped the Penguins create a competitive environment on the team and gave the club a jolt of youthful enthusiasm that had been missing.
Over the first two-plus months under Sullivan the mood on the team had completely shifted. The Penguins no longer expected to lose any game they trailed. Now, the feeling around the team, was they would win the game no matter the score or situation. The Penguins had their swagger back. They had their confidence back.
What lay ahead in the month of March would make or break the Penguins' season. Pittsburgh, playing in the most competitive division in hockey in the Metro, would face divisional foes in 11 of its first 12 contests in March, which included a stretch of nine straight. Pittsburgh would also be playing three teams that were in direct competition for a playoff spot in Philadelphia, New Jersey and the New York Islanders. This would be a definitive moment for Pittsburgh.
The time had come to see if the Penguins would sink or swim.
\\*
On March 3, the Penguins hosted the New York Rangers, the team that haunted them the previous two years. New York eliminated Pittsburgh in the 2014 and 2015 playoffs. Now the Rangers were hoping to add a dagger to Pittsburgh's playoff hopes before it could even qualify.
Unbeknownst to all parties, the fate of the two franchises would take a dramatic turn in the second period. The Penguins were darting toward the New York net with a 2-on-2 rush. Rangers captain Ryan McDonagh, trying to defend Patric Hornqvist, ran into his own goaltender. Though play continued without stoppage, Henrik Lundqvist barked at the referee for a whistle. When the whistle wasn't blown, Lundqvist turned and shoved the net off of its moorings and into the end boards in a fit of rage. Penguins fans cheered in delight at the display.
Though the Rangers took a 1-0 lead on Chris Kreider's shot from the circle, it would take the Penguins an entire 57 seconds to respond with a goal of their own. Sidney Crosby carried the puck down the near side and put a shot toward the goal. Lundqvist made the save, but the rebound caromed off of the end boards and Crosby alertly, with one hand on his stick, tapped the puck toward the crease, off of Lundqvist's pad and over the goal line.

Crosby's goal would be the start of a three-goal outburst in 1:39 minutes of play, and all within the final two minutes of the second period. Malkin pounced on a rebound in the lower circle and snapped in a shot to give Pittsburgh a 2-1 lead a mere 21 seconds after Crosby tied the game. Hornqvist finished the sequence with a power-play goal on a re-direct from between the circles with just 34 seconds left in the frame.
The Penguins scored three total goals in the final three games of the First Round series against Lundqvist in the 2015 playoffs - a span of 194:06 minutes of hockey. Pittsburgh equaled that three-goal output in a mere 99 seconds. When the third period began, Lundqvist was sitting on the bench and Antti Raanta relieved him for the third period. Final: Penguins 4, Rangers 1
The Penguins exorcised some personal demons with the win against the Rangers. Pittsburgh had slain the dragon, and its greatest nemesis. It was a major psychological hurdle that Pittsburgh needed to jump. Not only did it defeat New York, but established supremacy. Not only did the Penguins finally manage to score some goals on Lundqvist, they managed to penetrate his psyche. Lundqvist was no longer invincible. The Penguins had cracked the armor. Soon they would blow it open.
It was the first sign that this season things would be different. History would not repeat itself. The Penguins' destiny would have a new path forward.
\\*
Pittsburgh ran off a stretch of six straight wins against Columbus, the Rangers (again), New York Islanders, Carolina, Philadelphia and Washington. Miraculously, in the course of 17 days, the Penguins climbed from the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference up to third - and just one point behind second-place Florida.
The Penguins' final win of that six-game winning streak would be their "statement game." It was a 60-minute declaration that the Penguins were for real, that the Penguins would be a force in the playoffs and a legitimate Stanley Cup contender.
Pittsburgh hosted Washington in a highly anticipated contest. The Penguins players knew the Capitals would be a measuring stick of how well the Penguins' championship aspirations would stack up. The Capitals had the best record in the NHL at 51-15-5 entering the game, and no other team was even close to them in the standings. Washington would cruise to the best regular-season record in the league and the Presidents' Trophy.
Since Pittsburgh and Washington played in the same division, the Penguins knew they would have to go through Washington in order to win a Stanley Cup. The Penguins wanted to prove that they could not only play with the Capitals, but that they could beat them.
The Penguins took a 2-0 lead with a pair of goals 86-seconds apart, and from some of the fresh faces in the Pittsburgh lineup. Tom Kuhnhackl made a nice spinning pass to linemate Bryan Rust, who had blown past the Capitals defense. Rust was all alone against 48-winner Braden Holtby. The Penguins winger deked Holtby to the ice before sliding the puck around his pad.
Trevor Daley pinched on a play in the offensive zone and received a pass from Sidney Crosby. Daley lifted a backhander from a sharp angle near the goal line over Holtby's shoulder for the tally.
Jason Chimera scored on a fluke goal early in the second period to get Washington on the board. The Penguins appeared to take a 3-1 lead late in the second frame when Crosby dug out a loose puck in the crease and scored, but the referee had prematurely blown the whistle. One minute later Andre Burakovsky scored on a breakaway to tie the score at 2-2.
The Penguins were wrongly robbed of a goal and adding insult was the Capitals tying the game one minute later. Unlike the Penguins of old, or even three months ago, the new version of the Penguins shrugged off both setbacks and went right back to work. They didn't let the unfairness of the situation sink their confidence. Instead, they responded. And that response came just 42 seconds later.
Kuhnhackl forced a turnover in the offensive zone and chipped the puck to Matt Cullen. Nate Schmidt jumped to puck up Cullen, leaving Kuhnhackl unprotected. Cullen dished the puck back to Kuhnhackl and he blasted in a one-timer to regain the lead, 3-2, for Pittsburgh.
The Penguins kept the pressure on in the third period. Matt Cullen broke through the Capitals defensemen at the blue line and took a pass from Kuhnhackl for a breakaway. His shot went off of Holtby's blocker and then rolled down the goalie's back and in to give the Penguins a 4-2 lead just 3:46 into the final period. The assist was Kuhnhackl's third point of the night, a career high.
Crosby would set up another Penguins goal, this one for Chris Kunitz, to give the Penguins a 5-2 lead. The Penguins flipped a puck into the Capitals zone and Crosby blew past Brooks Orpik to retrieve and set up Kunitz. It was clear that the Capitals were no match for the Penguins' speed.

That would be the end of the night for Holtby. The man who would win the Vezina Trophy as the NHL's best goaltender while rewriting the league's record books with 48 wins would finish out the remaining 12:42 minutes of the game as a spectator on the bench. Final: Penguins 6, Capitals 2
The Penguins continued to torment the NHL as the regular season drew to a close. From March 11 to April 7, Pittsburgh won 14 of 15 games, which included winning streaks of six and eight games.
The Penguins, precariously in a playoff spot on March 2, officially clinched a postseason berth one month later on April 2 with a 5-0 shellacking of the New York Islanders. It marked the 10th consecutive season Pittsburgh would partake in the NHL's Cup tournament.
Rookie goaltender Matt Murray, playing in just his ninth NHL game, stopped all 24 shots from New York to record his first career NHL shutout. Murray was forced to start the game after starting netminder Marc-Andre Fleury suffered a concussion in the previous game. With Fleury's return date unknown, the net belonged to Murray.
Murray would start in goal for Pittsburgh for the team's final five games of the regular season. Overall, Murray had a personal winning streak of seven games entering the season finale in Philadelphia.
For the Penguins, the game would have no effect on their standing. Pittsburgh was locked into the No. 2 seeding in the Metro Division. All that had to be settled was which New York team - Rangers or Islanders - would land in the No. 3 seed and face Pittsburgh in the First Round.
But the Flyers were fighting for their playoff lives in that afternoon contest. Philadelphia sat in the ninth spot and was one point behind Boston for the final playoff position. The Bruins owned the tie-breaker and the Flyers would need to defeat the Penguins outright and hope the Bruins lost in regulation.
As the puck dropped at 3 p.m., the Flyers could taste the postseason. On the scoreboard above, the fans saw that Boston lost to Montreal, 6-1, earlier that afternoon. Which meant a win in any fashion would propel Philadelphia into the playoffs.
What appeared to be a nonessential game for the Penguins would take a significant turn late in the opening frame. Philadelphia's Brayden Schenn took a pass and cut toward the crease behind the Penguins defense. As Murray lunged forward, Schenn's hip drilled Murray in the head so violently that the whiplash dislodged Murray's goalie mask.
Murray left the game and was diagnosed with a concussion. Backup Jeff Zatkoff would finish the game and Pittsburgh would fall, 3-1. But the bigger story was the Penguins' goaltending situation. With the playoffs set to begin in just three days, who would be between the pipes for the Penguins to begin their championship push? Murray was now doubtful to start following his concussion.
Luckily Fleury, who had suffered a concussion on March 31, rejoined the team for practice two days before the start of the Stanley Cup playoffs and appeared ready to reclaim his starting position to begin the playoff run.
Or so the Penguins thought…