If anyone can still recall, the Capitals produced the most points in the NHL's regular season and were, by virtue of that body of work, broadly regarded as the league's best.
One problem with that: The Stanley Cup isn't awarded on a body of work.
Oh, sure, if the Penguins and Sharks hadn't both overcome ragged starts to 2015-16, neither would have qualified for the playoffs and, thus, of course, neither would stand on the precipice of the championship round that begins in great earnest Monday night at Consol Energy Center. But Pittsburgh's 48 wins and San Jose's 46 were melted down to zero once the postseason began. And so now, too, are their 12 wins through three rounds of playoffs.
As Kris Letang was telling me, "It's new. All new right now."
It's all square, too.
And man, I mean that in every way imaginable, because these two teams are not only the league's true best, as defined by the only criteria that matter, but they're also excruciatingly close in so many categories that, in all candor, it's really, really hard to pick a winner. Or even which aspect might separate them:
Here's my try, anyway, in identifying four places the home team must excel if it hopes to finish with the Cup over its collective head:
1. SKATE SUPER-FAST.
Duh, right.
Well, hang on, because there's a double-meaning here: The Penguins generally have been lousy after long layoffs, so these three idle days at this time of year could feel like an eternity, especially for a team that needs its legs going full gusto to be effective. And that's exactly what will be needed in this case.
The Sharks are bigger and stronger on the puck, but they're not exactly slow.
As Brent Burns put it, "We feel like we've got a pretty fast team, too."
"People think of them as just huge and that's it," Patric Hornqvist said. "But that's not it. They're fast. Really fast. We're going to have to be skating at our very best."
And that's got to be right from the opening draw. Because the most dynamic advantage the Penguins might have in this series figures to apply mostly in the beginning. San Jose hasn't seen a team like this, maybe all season when one considers that these teams' only meetings came before Mike Sullivan and all the speed-based trades. The West is built on bulk. So even though the Sharks and Capitals have some similar traits, the Capitals would have been much better prepared for the Penguins' speed through having known them.
There's a shock value, maybe even an intimidation value, in the Penguins exploiting that advantage immediately. That was in play early with the Rangers, Capitals and Lightning, and it's an absolute must now, as the Sharks have other ways to prevail if they're afforded a chance to get cozy. They can, with Peter DeBoer having once coached in New Jersey, be sound defensively. They can, with all that size, own the boards and dominate possession.
But not if they're back on their heels.
“In my experience with the Sharks," Ben Lovejoy said, including his time with Anaheim, "they try to come out and take the game away from you in the first 10 minutes. They’ll put up 10, 15 shots in the first 10 minutes and score a couple of goals if you let them. We must be aware of that. We must be aggressive early and be ready from puck drop.”
The Penguins are 9-2 when they score first in these playoffs, 3-4 when they don’t.
Skate, create and don't wait.
2. POUND ALL PAIRS
Within the urgency of skating at warp speed from the outset is the equally critical variable of doing so across all four lines, in large part to exploit San Jose's lack of depth on defense.
Burns is so much more than that gap-toothed, grizzly-bearded visage, arguably one of the league's five most dynamic at his position and a Norris Trophy finalist. Marc-Edouard Vlasic wasn't chosen to represent Canada by accident, and he's shown that again this postseason by being DeBoer's main matchup guy. Paul Martin is very much a known commodity in these parts, as well, and he's been a perfect fit for the Sharks.
But beyond those three and maybe Vlasic's partner, Justin Braun ... my goodness, it drops off. And that's not me talking. That's DeBoer's ice-time assessments talking: The Sharks' third pairing of Brenden Dillon and Roman Polak average seven minutes less than the top two pairs. Also, they've combined for zero points despite starting all 18 games, and they've got the only minus ratings on the entire roster.
Wait, who cares about third pairings?
That's usually a fair point, but consider that the Penguins have produced some seriously pivotal goals in these playoffs against the third-pairing likes of Dan Boyle, Dylan McIlrath, Dmitry Orlov, Mike Weber, Nate Schmidt, Taylor Chorney, Matt Carle and all kinds of other guys whose names you might never hear again.
And there's a reason: The Penguins come in wave after wave when they're at their best, and there's nowhere to hide a third pairing.
Wait, check that: It's wave after wave after wave after wave. Because to be at their best, it can't just be the Carl Hagelin-Nick Bonino-Phil Kessel line that's going. It's got to be Sidney Crosby's line and Evgeni Malkin's line both performing as they did in Games 6 and 7 of the Eastern Conference final. And it's even got to include Matt Cullen's fourth line popping in the occasional goal.
“We’ve got to keep playing the same way that got us here," Olli Maatta said. "We can’t sit back against this team. We've got to go at them.”
If they do that, they'll wear out the Sharks' big three, none of whom are young -- Vlasic is 29, Burns 31, Martin 35 -- and who can't collectively rival the Blackhawks' big four that Joel Quenneville was uniquely able to ride to championships. If anything, this quartet is shallower and not as mobile as Washington's that eventually got tired of chasing Hagelin, Kessel and Bryan Rust all over creation.
And that's to say nothing of the Sharks' older forwards: Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau are 36, Joel Ward 35. The Penguins' only players 35 or older are Cullen and Chris Kunitz.
They might also wear out DeBoer. Because like Alain Vigneault, Barry Trotz and Jon Cooper before him, San Jose's coach will be confronted with the tall task of choosing a matchup for the Vlasic pair. No coach against this team can reflexively line up with Crosby and/or Malkin and roll the rest.
"They're probably the fastest team in the league," DeBoer said Sunday, and it's on Monday that, for the first time, he'll have to be just as fast.
Faces of the Stanley Cup Final on Media Day at Consol Energy Center. -- DKPS
3. GET AFTER THE GOAL.
Martin Jones is 6-4, he stands tall, and he's been a fine goaltender this season. In the playoffs, he's 12-6 with a 2.12 goals-against average, a .917 save percentage, and two of his three shutouts came in the Western Conference final against the Blues. His regular-season 2.27 and .918 figures were consistent with that.
But -- and I'm struggling to concoct a respectful way to say this -- of the five goaltenders the Penguins will have faced in these playoffs, he'll be by far the least of them. He's not Henrik Lundqvist, among the best of his generation. He's not Braden Holtby, the Vezina Trophy lock. He's not Ben Bishop, a Vezina finalist, and I'm not sure any of those guys are what Andrei Vasilevskiy just was for Tampa Bay.
That's not to suggest Jones will be some pushover. Rather, to repeat for emphasis, he just isn't what those guys are. And never has been.
Is it fair to emphasize that he was undrafted coming out of the WHL?
Probably not. He had strong numbers for the Calgary Hitmen, and the Kings were smart to sign him to a minor-league contract even though they'd just drafted Jeff Zatkoff in the third round that same year.
Is it fair to emphasize that, at age 26, he's made 158 career AHL starts to his 117 in the NHL and that most of his time in Los Angeles was spent as Jonathan Quick's backup?
No, probably not. Quick's a franchise goaltender in every sense. A champion, too.
But then, so is Marc-Andre Fleury. And Matt Murray, circumstances notwithstanding, has not only taken the starting job in Pittsburgh but also matched Jones' performance all spring. Maybe he's surpassed it, actually, in the context that he's had to outduel Lundqvist, Holtby and Vasilevskiy, while Jones basically got a bye through the final in facing the Blues' miserable combo of Brian Elliott and Jake Allen.
Is it fair to show this Kyle Brodziak goal from Game 4 of the Western final that was the Blues' third before the second intermission and got Jones chased?
Wow, of course not. Everyone gives up bad goals. But the technique on that lateral move across the crease is ... oh, never mind. It really is unfair.
Bottom line: The Penguins can and must speak of Jones with respect, but they've got to have every confidence that, if they can beat the goaltenders they've already beaten by peppering away and forcing all kinds of lateral movement, they'll do the same with this one.
They've averaged 35.1 shots per game in these playoffs, and Jones has seen an average of 27.1. Actually, he's faced as many as 30 shots only four times in 18 starts.
This could be a whole new level, and he seemed to be aware of that Sunday.
"We've done a good job all year keeping shots down, so it's a good challenge," Jones said. "I don't think it's one thing. We've got to manage their speed. Obviously, rebounds are a big part of that, too. They take it to the net hard. We just need to stick with our game."
4. OH, THAT POWER PLAY
There are no ifs, ands, buts or other qualifiers when it comes to San Jose's power play. It's sensational. In the regular season, it ranked third in the NHL with a 22.5 percent conversion rate. In the playoffs, it's been even better, with 17 goals and a 27.0 percent rate.
Now, there's been nothing fluky about the Penguins' penalty-killing, fifth in the regular season and fifth in these playoffs at 83.6 percent. But ...
"They've got so many great players over there, star players," Carl Hagelin said. "They've got so many weapons, so many ways to score. You've just got to make sure you stay in lanes, stay disciplined. It'll be a huge challenge, for sure."
Brian Dumoulin, another penalty-killer, expressed a similar sentiment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SLKahVAfk4
As I see it, this will be the challenge.
For one, it's undoubtedly the Sharks' greatest strength, and taking that away removes roughly a third of their offense and a huge part of who they are.
For another, if the Penguins succeed against the power play, it'll also mean they're succeeding in ways that will serve them well five-on-five, notably cutting off the still-frighteningly versatile Thornton's shooting and passing options, as well as brushing away the equally dangerous Joe Pavelski from the crease and slot, where he's more adept than anyone in the NHL at deflections and leads everyone in the playoffs with 13 goals. Heck, they might even cut off a back-door play once in a while if they're sharp on Burns. And that's to say nothing of Logan Couture, who's the playoffs' leading scorer with 24 points, or the smart, swift retrieval man Marleau, both constantly rotating with the rest.
Actually, I could either try to explain San Jose's power play or simply show you this Pavelski slam dunk in Game 5 against the Blues, in which every single one of the Sharks other than Burns was out of standard position:
And yes, that's Pavelski manning the left point, which is where he starts out despite scoring so often from up close.
No one will be more pivotal in manning up to this than Murray, obviously, but Kris Letang is right up there. Maybe Ian Cole, too, specifically for his work in moving bodies.
"They've got a lot of dangerous guys, and they move the puck really well," Letang said. "But we've done pretty well in killing penalties."
They've done even better, as one might expect, when they don't have to kill them at all. In each of the four victories in the Eastern final, the Lightning had exactly one power play.
"Discipline is so important," Letang said.
No, really, he said that.
____________________
I'm no believer in intangibles in championship rounds. The Penguins won't find extra motivation any more than the Sharks will, no matter the narratives spun around them. Both arrived here on similar trajectories with similar skill sets, and all else is immaterial on this, the sport's greatest stage.
As Crosby mused at Media Day, "This is all kind of fun, but once you get out on the ice, that's the only thing that matters."
So let's stick with hockey, then, in assessing all this.
From the moment the Blue Jackets' Dalton Prout cleanly checked Malkin into the boards March 11 in Columbus, and the Penguins were faced with missing Malkin for 6-8 weeks, all they've done is go 26-8 over a 34-game stretch in which they faced 30 teams that qualified for the playoffs. And in those playoffs, they beat the team with the NHL's best record and then the one that represented the East in last year's Cup Final.
That team has a clear path in front of it. It knows what to do and how to do it.
It just needs to move quickly down that path.
Penguins in seven.