For the past two seasons, the Penguins have been the standard-bearers for NHL excellence. Not only did every other team want to beat them, they wanted to be them. It's a copycat league and, well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
But history is written by the victors, not by teams eliminated in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Unfortunately for the Penguins, there is no patent on Mike Sullivan's system, and as witnessed this season, more and more teams -- even a non-playoff club such as the Hurricanes -- matched the Penguins' team speed. The Capitals even managed to turn the Penguins' transition game against them in the second round.
Needless to say, it will be very interesting to see what -- if any -- strategic changes Sullivan might have in store in 2018-19. Does the organization view the loss to Washington as a blip on the radar, a series that could have gone either way? Or was it a sign of things to come?
Will the Penguins -- who succeeded with speed, skill and not a whole lot of size -- stay true to themselves?
Or will they, and presumably 29 other teams, look to emulate this year's Cup winner in 2018-19?
The Penguins might have a rooting interest.
Of the four teams still playing, Winnipeg would clearly be the most radical departure from the Penguins' paradigm. And not just because they would be the first Canadian-based team to win the Stanley Cup in a quarter-century.
The Jets have the requisite team speed but they are also by far the biggest and most physical team still standing.
Consider: Winnipeg's best four players are 6-foot-5 Dustin Byfuglien, 6-5 Blake Wheeler, 6-5 Patrick Laine and Mark Scheifele at a "mere" 6-3. Oh, and Byfuglien goes about -- wink, wink -- 260 pounds and can rag doll grown men like this:
?⬆️ BAH GAWD BYFUGLIEN SMASH
Jim Ross calls make everything better. #StanleyCup pic.twitter.com/BPeuccVZ5w
— NHL on NBC (@NHLonNBCSports) May 17, 2018
Winnipeg would become the heaviest team to win the Cup since the 2007 Ducks. Fighting is way down in the league, and the Jets are no exception. Their eight fighting majors in the regular season were fourth-fewest, but as the league found out this season, they are plenty tough and big.
The Jets aren't just big though, they are good.
In the the NHL, big and good has traditionally trumped small and good.
• I regret to inform you John Tavares isn't coming to the Penguins this summer. Neither is Erik Karlsson. As you were.
• The signing of Juuso Riikola should give the Penguins some added defensive depth in the organization but do not look for the Finn to be playing in Pittsburgh anytime soon unless it's due to a rash of injuries.
Pittsburgh's depth continued to get stretched even thinner when Lukas Bengtsson signed a three-year deal to return to his native Sweden to play for Linköping HC Friday. Bengtsson was arguably the top defense prospect in the system. He joins Andrey Pedan, who signed earlier this month with Ak Bars Kazan of the KHL. You might recall Pedan was acquired from Vancouver in the trade for Derrick Pouliot.
The Penguins are scheduled to have six picks in the June 22-23 draft. I'd expect Rutherford to go a little heavier on defense than usual.
• If the Capitals go on to lose the Eastern Conference Final, it won't be because they choked or because the Lightning are "in the head" of Braden Holtby.
Give credit where credit is due. Tampa Bay didn't win the Presidents Trophy, but a strong argument can be made the Lightning were the best team in the NHL from start to finish. I didn't have the Penguins getting past either the Lightning or Bruins.
• The NHL loves itself some parity.
Save for the Capitals, the other three teams competing in the conference finals didn't even qualify for the playoffs a season ago. The Golden Knights? They didn't even exist.
With apologies to the Jets, Lightning and Capitals, the Knights are the most compelling story not just in hockey but in all of pro sports. Marc-Andre Fleury and his band of castoffs are pretty easy to root for:
There are just no words to describe Marc-Andre Fleury. Before he even took his pads off after game 3 of the Western Conference Final he spent time with the two sons of the Humboldt Broncos coach Darcy Haugan. They don’t make too many like him. pic.twitter.com/cIxbG6AhXo
— Kevaney Martin (@KevaneyMartin) May 17, 2018
• A pair of former Penguins were hired as pro coaches this week.
Honestly, I didn't have Alexei Kovalev pegged as coaching material when he was a player, but AK27 was hired on Friday to serve as assistant for Kunlun, a KHL team based in China.
For those not old enough to remember, Kovalev was one of the most talented players to don a Penguins sweater. Strictly from a skill-set standpoint, I'd put him in a class with Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.
Kovalev's hiring came a day after Joel Bouchard was named head coach of the Laval Rocket, the AHL affiliate of the Canadiens.
Strangely enough, the Penguins dealt Kovalev back to the Rangers on Feb. 10, 2003, in exchange for Bouchard, Richard Lintner, Mikael Samuelsson and, the highly forgettable Rico Fata.
If you watched the 2002-03 Penguins, you should never, ever, ever complain about a second-round loss in the playoffs.
• You can add Cam Neely's name to the list of the those unhappy with what he's seen from the guys in stripes during the the playoffs. During his season-ending media availability, the Bruins' former tough guy and current president said the league's officiating needed to be addressed during the off-season.
"The game’s gotten faster and there was a lot of great, exciting matchups in the playoffs. And a lot of the talk — not just our series, but in other series — was the officiating," Neely said.
Pretty sure one of those "other series" he was talking about included Penguins-Capitals.
• Call me a sucker for weekday afternoon hockey, but other than the goofy advertisements on the helmets and the car in the corner (just like Brooklyn's Barclays Center), the IIHF World Championships are actually good theater. Really, where else can you see Teddy Blueger do this:
#SWEvsLAT Broken stick for @trekronorse leads to a turnover for @lhf_lv and Blugers evens it up! #IIHFWorlds pic.twitter.com/jEUu2Ylux9
— IIHF (@IIHFHockey) May 17, 2018
The hockey player formerly known as Teodors Blugers was born in Riga, Latvia, and came to North America at age 15, when he enrolled at Shattuck St. Mary's -- Sidney Crosby's old school -- in Faribault, Minn. Blueger/Blugers spent some time with the Penguins this season (though he didn't play). Speaking to him, you'd think he was born in America.