Potash catches up with Dumoulin ahead of 2016 Game 1

Everyone's favorite rinkside reporter, Dan Potash, caught up with Penguins defenseman Brian Dumoulin via "DAN CAM" ahead of AT&T SportsNet's broadcast of Game 1 of the 2016 Stanley Cup Final on Monday night.

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* Dumoulin is relishing the opportunity to spend family time with his wife, Kayla, and their son Brayden, who turned five months old on April 3. Brayden has been keeping them busy in the best way possible.

"It seems like every day has just been flying by with him. He's been growing so much," Dumoulin said. "It's been really good in that sense to be able to spend a lot of time with him and get to know Brayden really well and help out my wife at home. She definitely appreciates having me home for this time. It's been good to spend it as a family and grow together. Obviously we're missing hockey and competing and seeing our teammates and friends. But right now, with all the circumstances, we're holding it down pretty good here."

* From there, Dumoulin and Potash set the scene for Game 1, which was the defenseman's Stanley Cup Final debut. And even though he was just 24 years old at the time, Dumoulin said he didn't have much time to think about the stakes of the situation coming off of an emotional seven-game series against Tampa Bay.

"It was such a whirlwind of playing those series and having to go through a grind and then start a whole one up again," Dumoulin said. "When you get to the Stanley Cup Final you're one of only two teams playing, so the excitement level is through the roof. You could see it in the locker room. I still remember how excited everyone was."

Especially because they had gone through the gauntlet with the Stanley Cup Final Media Day the afternoon before, which is where it started to feel real for a lot of the players.

"I think everyone was just anxious to get the series going because there's a lot of built-up stuff around the Stanley Cup Final with the media and your family and a lot of people are excited for you," Dumoulin said. "I think everyone in the locker room was just ready to get it started."

* The Sharks presented a new challenge for the Penguins in terms of their hybrid style, which was a combination of Pittsburgh's previous two opponents. They were big and physical, like Washington, but also had some skilled guys, like Tampa Bay.

"From what I can remember now that still sticks out is that they had a talented defensive corps that were getting a lot of shots through," Dumoulin said. "Their forwards really relied on their D-men to get pucks through to the net."

With that, one of the Penguins' strategies was to try and take away those shots from the point.

"I remember that was kind of our focus, especially going into Game 1 with that being something they had really done well to get them to that spot," Dumoulin said.

* The Penguins couldn't have asked for a better start in the game, getting out to a 2-0 lead in the first period on goals from rookies Bryan Rust and Conor Sheary. But the Sharks would bite back in the second, tying the game 2-2 heading into the intermission.

"We still had a lot of belief (in the room)," Dumoulin said. "We knew from the season that we were a third-period team. That's when we played our best hockey. Obviously we had a two-goal lead and we ended up blowing that. Not exactly how you want to draw it up at home in Game 1, but we kept sticking with it and we had a belief and knew that if we just kept plugging away and kept making the smart plays, that our chances would come."

Though it may have taken a little longer for one of those chances to get through than Dumoulin and his teammates would have liked.

"Obviously it took until two minutes left in the third period, and obviously we're very thankful that we didn't have to go to OT and have to worry about that in Game 1," Dumoulin said with a smile. "(Kris Letang) made a great play to Nick Bonino in the front of the net, who just chipped it over the goalie's blocker. It was a pretty special goal, especially scoring it with two minutes left in the game.

"It definitely eased us, but I think everyone on the bench was pretty focused in for the last two minutes because Game 1 is such an important game in the Stanley Cup Final and any series that you play."

* As everyone knows, the Penguins went on to win the series and with it, the Stanley Cup. Dumoulin became the first player from the state of Maine to win the Stanley Cup, and he brought it home later that summer.

"I was fortunate enough to spend a lot of time in Maine playing hockey and growing up," he said. "I was able to play for my high school in Biddeford, Maine for three years and I definitely can say that Maine developed me a lot.

"Just being able to bring it back home and see the excitement level of the Mainers and just being able to spend that Stanley Cup with my family and friends and take it to Portland, Maine was pretty special. It's something I want to do again, and it's something where I still have that hunger in me and something where I want to bring it back to Maine again."