Inside Scoop: Practice 4-24-18
* At this point, it feels inevitable that the Pens and Caps will play each other in the postseason. So the players were pretty matter-of-fact when reacting to the matchup happening for a third straight season. "We're not overly surprised," winger Bryan Rust said. "They're a good team, we've been a good team so I think it's going to be a fun series."
* The Pens also weren't interested in talking about the history. They're obviously well-aware that they've eliminated the Caps two years in a row and in nine of the previous 10 meetings. But today, everybody in that dressing room said the past is the past and they're really not thinking about it at all.
"It's a new year," defenseman Kris Letang said. "The series is going to play out differently. The games are going to be won differently. You don't know how it's going to go. The only thing I know is that it's a good rivalry, it's two really good teams, two teams that have a lot of punch offensively. It's going to be fun to be a part of. A lot of emotions. It's going to be cool."
Letang also pointed out that those series were incredibly difficult challenges for the Pens, who needed seven games in 2017 and six games in 2016 to move on. "Those series went the distance," he said. "They went to overtime, it was a tough matchup, they could go either way."
* The Pens have been talking a lot about how it's important for them to focus on their own game and worry about themselves and how they need to play. I think that's easier to do against an opponent like the Caps, considering the Pens have played them 26 times over the last three seasons entering this series. "We've seen them a lot the past couple of years," captain Sidney Crosby said. "Both teams know each other well, I think both teams know what to expect."
While there have been some personnel changes on both sides, overall the core of both teams has remained the same over the last three seasons. For the Pens, that includes Letang, Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Phil Kessel and Matt Murray, while the Caps have Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, T.J. Oshie and Braden Holtby to name a few. "I don't think there's drastic differences," Pens head coach Mike Sullivan said. "I think they're a little bit more evolved, they're a little bit more mature as our team is. But other than that, they're a very competitive team as they have been year in and year out with the core of players that they have."
* A lot of the media asked the Pens players about Alex Ovechkin and the overall narrative of him having individual success but not necessarily team success. That's something else the Pens weren't interested in discussing. "We're all just trying to do our best in the moment and let everyone else judge that stuff," Crosby said. "As players you just try to play."
What the Pens would discuss was how to stop Ovechkin, something that never gets easier. "He's a pretty big threat out there," Letang said. "Every time you can do your job against him and do it right, it's pretty satisfying. It's a big task. He's really tough, he's a big body, he's physical, he's got a big shot obviously, and we all know that. A lot of skill. It's a big challenge and it's fun to be a part of it."
* Letang and goalie Matt Murray did not play against Washington in the 2017 postseason. Murray was injured for the first six games before returning to back up Marc-Andre Fleury for Game 7, while Letang missed the entire playoffs while recovering from surgery to repair a herniated disc in his neck. He couldn't travel for the first three road games in D.C., but was able to watch his team eliminate the Caps with a 2-0 win in Game 7.
"It was tough for me to watch that one because it was so soon after my surgery," Letang said. "So I didn't have the chance, but I was there for Game 7. It's intense. When you see that much talent play against each other with that adversity, it makes a fun series."
* Caps goalie Braden Holtby is someone whom has a great reputation around the league for being a terrific player and terrific person. He's someone that's a great role model to younger goalies like Murray, who was impressed by the professionalism Holtby showed in the First Round after not getting the starts for Games 1 and 2.
"He's one of the best in the world," Murray said. "He's a tough competitor, he's tough mentally. He's a guy that I really look up to. He's one of the best and he showed it."
