It won't be Sidney Crosby's Stanley Cup.
Nothing hits harder than that.
If one visual resonates for me from the Penguins' championships in 2016 and 2017, then and now and forever, it'll be the captain clutching that Cup like a life preserver. For hours. For days. From the moment he'd take the handoff from Gary Bettman, so ready for the raising that he'd never make eye contact with the commissioner, he'd never let the thing go. He might as well have been the steward, the guy with the white gloves. He'd tell everyone whose turn was next to touch it. He'd lug it into the locker room. He'd marshal it down the Boulevard of the Allies.
He's the most selfless human being one could hope to encounter ... except when it comes to the Cup.
The Cup was his.
Until it wasn't.
At precisely 10 p.m. Eastern on this Monday night at, at 5:27 of overtime, in Game 6 of the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, the Capitals' Evgeny Kuznetsov capped another climactic breakaway to put down the two-time defending champs, 2-1, at PPG Paints Arena:
The crushing quiet in the immediate aftermath was unlike anything unheard in these parts since David Volek ended the previous three-peat attempt, also in overtime, way back in 1993. And it was that much more powerful at ice level. Matt Murray couldn't look up. Kris Letang crumpled behind the goal line on all fours. Even Mike Sullivan's chin, perpetually high, dropped ever so slightly.
Crosby, who'd been unable to corral the Letang breakout that led to Washington's superb counterattack, spent the next few seconds gathering himself at the bench, then led the wrong end of a handshake line for the first time in 1,109 days:
Then, in a striking sight, he drifted back away from the pack to stand alone at the Pittsburgh blue line.
Not to reflect. Certainly not to mope. Just to make sure none of his teammates would leave the ice without collectively acknowledging the suddenly standing, cheering, chanting crowd.
'Let's go Pens! Let's go Pens! Let's go Pens!'
As if in disbelief that it was over.
Crosby led his team there, too:
Bryan Rust, held without a point for the series, looked to be the last straggler off the ice, but Crosby wouldn't have that, either. He waited by the bench door until everyone was off, then closed the door:
And after fielding all the questions from all the usual cameras and microphones surrounding his locker stall, after nearly everyone else was out of this area, too -- only Murray, a vacant-eyed Evgeni Malkin and a silent Carl Hagelin remained -- the greatest player in hockey took a deep breath, then leaned forward to finally unlace his right skate.
That was it. It was over.
It's really over.
And yet ...
"We had a chance," Crosby would tell me as that skate was peeled off. "We could have done it again."
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Go ahead and blame away.
It's what we do as Pittsburghers, and I offer that lovingly, believe it or not. The Penguins and Steelers are held to extraordinarily high standards in our city, and that's partly through the public totally freaking out when things go awry. Even if that's within the pursuit of an event as extraordinary as a championship.
Blame Crosby, of all people, for not gaining Washington's blue line with greater authority.
Blame Brian Dumoulin, who outskated anyone on either side on this night, for attacking too aggressively up the left side when his partner had the puck up the right side.
Blame Letang, who had his team's only goal and had exasperated Alexander Ovechkin throughout the series, for swinging too wide to the right and leaving too big a gap for the counter.
Blame Matt Murray, who'd rebounded admirably from an earlier awful goal, for getting burned through the five-hole by Kuznetsov, just like the winner in Game 5.
Heck, blame the damned pipe that kept Tom Kuhnhackl from running for mayor:
"I heard the reaction of the crowd and saw on the JumboTron that it hit the post," Kuhnhackl would recall of his clang a couple minutes before Kuznetzov's finish. "Obviously, it's unfortunate."
It was unfortunate. For some, I'm sure, it was also infuriating. Again, it's who we are.
So have a field day with all of the above. Punch a pillow. Call a talk show or tweet up a storm. Give 'em hell.
But once that's out of the system, consider, with a clearer head, these three concepts:
1. The other guys made a play.
It was a tremendous play, too, almost all to Washington's credit.
Crosby does get a blade on the pass from Letang, but it's Kuznetsov himself on the backcheck to poke it loose. That was emblematic of the Capitals' approach all series, but especially on this night without two of their top five forwards, newly injured Nicklas Backstrom and still-suspended Tom Wilson. Needing to "stay within ourselves," as Barry Trotz would describe it, they stayed in an ultra-dull but effective 1-1-3 scheme that dared the Penguins to broach their blue line with possession.
So when Kuznetsov pokes, Dmitry Orlov swipes it across in one motion to Ovechkin, who's already moving the other way.
"It's all about the play between the blue lines," Kuznetsov would say. "We got the turnover, and then it's a good transition."
Not good. Great:
Ovechkin takes a stride and a half before smartly shoving the puck forward on his backhand -- extra difficult in a straight-ahead motion -- to capitalize on Kuznetsov somehow staying in full flight even after a 180-degree turn.
"I just put the puck into space for Kuzy," Ovechkin would say. "He did his thing."
And once Kuznetsov bursts through, he uses his left leg as a shield for the stick he knew was coming from Letang -- and there goes that stick helicoptering into the corner -- before switching up on Murray and going forehand rather the preferred backhand he'd used in Game 5:
"When you get a breakaway in a situation like that, you don't think," Kuznetsov said. "You're just trying to do ... something."
Sorry, but that's just gorgeous hockey.
Could any of the various Penguins involved have done better?
Sure, but that shouldn't take away from the excellence of the execution on the Washington end.
"We had the puck," Letang began his explanation that was better than anyone's. "I made a pass. We gained their zone. There was kind of a mess in the middle, the puck squirted out, and there was a guy streaking down the middle."
Sullivan assessed it the same way, saying of Kuznetsov, "You've got to give him credit. He made a nice play."
2. That goal didn't lose the series.
Neither did Kuznetsov's in Game 5. Those don't deserve the magnifying glass they'll undoubtedly get.
No, what lost the series was the imbalance in goaltending -- Braden Holtby was brilliant from front to finish, while Murray was no better than ordinary -- as well as the deeply disappointing lack of secondary scoring. I spoke my peace on the goaltending after Game 5, but this one really seemed to underscore the latter.
Let's name names: Phil Kessel, Derick Brassard and Riley Sheahan each finished the playoffs with one goal, none in this series. Rust had three goals in the playoffs, but, again, no points in this series. Kuhnhackl, Conor Sheary, Carter Rowney and Zach Aston-Reese had zero goals in the playoffs.
Put another way, Crosby, Malkin, Jake Guentzel and Patric Hornqvist accounted for 18 of the 26 goals by forwards.
There's nowhere to run from that.
"I think we just had to have more players playing at their best at this time," Sullivan said, though he didn't name names. "As I said to the players, I know how much this group cares. I know how much they try. I see the effort they put in every day."
No question the effort was there from most of those players. Also no question that a few of them, notably Kessel and Brassard, were slogging through injuries, and we'll find out much more about those at the team's getaway day later this week. But I can already attest here that Crosby was working through a bum wrist, banged-up ribs and maybe more, and he fared just fine.
It's funny that Jim Rutherford addressed the forward depth at the trade deadline, this at the expense of the defense, and the forward depth still, somehow, wound up being the shortcoming.
3. It's OK to lose once in a while.
My timing's terrible to bring this up ... well, ever ... but I've maintained for months the Penguins were going to have a huge challenge getting through Tampa Bay if they'd reached the Eastern final. That stance only solidified after the Lightning loaded up at the deadline, then smoked the Devils and Bruins in five games each.
And even if the Penguins had gotten through to the Final again, the West is looking more formidable than at any point in the past three years between the Jets, Predators and ... ugh, sorry to remind here that this could have been the Penguins taking on Marc-Andre Fleury and the Golden Knights. But that would have been rough, too, especially after the Penguins would have needed 13 games to get through the Flyers and Capitals.
This roster wasn't fresh enough, with the franchise having logged an unreal 307 games in 943 days, beginning with the 2015-16 season opener in Dallas right through this one. That's an average of one game every 3.06 days including the offseason! No NHL team's dealt with a grind like that since the Penguins and Red Wings met in back-to-back Finals in 2008 and 2009.
But this roster evidently wasn't good enough, either, for so, so many forwards to slump simultaneously with no one pushing them from behind other than a young, not-at-all-ready Daniel Sprong.
So a loss like this -- no, a playoff like this -- doesn't allow for that to get swept away. Moves have to be made, although definitely not major ones.
"I think over the next little while I'm going to have to digest it to see what the takeaway might be," Sullivan said, still speaking to the scoring depth. "Certainly ... you know, losing's tough. We're all in it to win. And it stings. It stings when you lose. But sometimes you learn more from your failures than your successes."
If that happens, if the Penguins make smart adjustments, they can avoid the pitfalls of the Blackhawks and Kings, who stubbornly stuck by too many of the same faces for too long after their championships and are still trying to climb back out. The Crosby/Malkin era won't last forever, so that's critical.
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But enough of that for now.
Because what's ultimately left in the wake of the chapter that closed on this night is those two most recent entries on this list ...
... and those, as the athletes are fond of shouting through the champagne, can never be taken away.
Just as there can never be any reasonable regrets related to any of this.
The crowd got it right. They stood, cheered and chanted for this remarkable group.
We just witnessed, over these past three years, the Penguins become the first NHL team to claim consecutive Cups in 20 years, the first ever in the salary-cap era. We witnessed Crosby ascend to the peak of his career, a point we feared we'd never see after his concussion nightmare. We witnessed Malkin make a similar climb with some of his biggest numbers in years. We witnessed clinching overtime magic by Nick Bonino and Chris Kunitz. We witnessed the hugs, the tears, the magical moments in San Jose and Nashville:
We witnessed Malkin accidentally punching Kessel in the face as Hagelin raced down the rink for the sealing empty-netter:
My goodness, we lined the streets for parades like a family reunion, one year after the other, giddily able to plant our folding chairs in the same familiar spots along the Boulevard of the Allies, then rooting on:
And yeah, it could have happened again.
That's what stuck out for me once this was over. I'd considered all that they'd already endured, as well as my own admittedly low bar for how this third run would go, and it struck me as impressive in many ways that they'd even have reached this stage.
Listen to Letang when I asked if he could, in this moment, try to look back at all that had been achieved:
"I think we had a great chance to do it again," the man answered. "In a few years, yeah, we've done some great things. But we expected more."
There was a lot of that. There also was a lot of expressed, justified pride. This was no ordinary elimination, and it shouldn't have been treated that way.
That started down the hall with Trotz, when his press conference opened with a question about him and Ovechkin each reaching a conference final for the first time, instead spoke of the nemesis the Capitals had at long last overcome: "There are some great champions in that other room. Great players. What they've done and accomplished the last couple years is pretty remarkable. This is a tough league."
"We haven't tasted this in a long time," Sullivan spoke to the same subject. "That's a credit to the players in that dressing room. I couldn't be more proud of them as their coach."
Crosby: "We haven't had this feeling for a little while. It definitely stings. You understand just how difficult it is and what a fine line it is between winning and losing. Everybody did what they could."
Malkin: "The last two years, we played unbelievable. Three years is so hard. Maybe we were a little bit tired, I don't know. It's tough. We played a good team. Washington played unbelievable. They played really good. ... It's a sad day for us. We need to look forward. Now we look forward. I'm lucky to play here."
Murray: "This group is so resilient. It's all about the next one and moving forward. We showed that right to the very end. Nothing but pride in here."
Schultz: "I'm so proud of this team. It wasn't easy, and we battled. Washington played really hard. They're a good team over there. ... It just sucks right now. We had a good team. We had a good chance."
The last man to carry a championship on his blade was Hagelin, nursing it all the way down that choppy ice in Nashville. He told me of that goal last September, upon reporting for training camp, "I'll have this forever. I'll carry this with me forever."
I approached him last in the locker room on this night. He was the silent one, if you'll recall.
"I think we went through a lot," Hagelin began upon raising his head. "We didn't have the start we needed as a team. Some of us struggled individually, myself included. A lot of people were saying we weren't going to make the playoffs. And then, after Christmas, we took it to another level. We had a lot of confidence. We felt good about ourselves."
He shook his head.
"We were good enough to win it all."
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Penguins vs. Capitals, PPG Paints Arena, May 7, 2018. - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS