June 14, 2016

Pittsburgh Penguins players, coaches, and staff pose with the Stanley Cup trophy after defeating the San Jose Sharks in game six of the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup Final on June 12, 2016.
Credit: © Marcio Jose Sanchez, AP Photo

On Sunday night, June 12, the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League (NHL) defeated the San Jose Sharks 3-1 to win the best-of-7 Stanley Cup Final 4 games to 2, capturing their first title in 7 years. The quick, confident Penguins made themselves at home on the ice at the SAP Center in San Jose, California, thoroughly outskating the Sharks to nab the championship series-clinching win. It was the fourth NHL title for the Penguins—often simply called the Pens.

Pittsburgh star forward Sidney Crosby, who won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoffs’ most valuable player, scored 19 points—6 goals and 13 assists—through the Pens’ 24-game playoff run. He had 2 assists in Sunday’s championship clincher. “It’s special,” Crosby said about the MVP trophy. “It’s the one you play for.” The Penguins also received valuable ice time from forwards Phil Kessel and Evgeni Malkin, defenseman Kris Letang, and rookie goaltender Matthew Murray.

Penguins owner and Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Mario Lemieux (himself a two-time Conn Smythe winner while leading the Pens to back-to-back titles in 1991 and 1992) lifted the Stanley Cup during the postgame celebration. “It’s so hard to win it year after year,” Lemieux said, referencing the team’s playoff failures since their most recent title in 2009. “Hopefully there’s a few more for them.”

It was quite a turnaround for the Steel City’s flightless birds, which languished near the bottom of the NHL’s Eastern Conference before firing coach Mike Johnston and hiring Mike Sullivan in December 2015. Sullivan’s changes improved the Penguins’ pace of play and empowered Crosby as a leader. Crosby finished the 2015-2016 regular season ranked third in points behind Chicago’s Patrick Kane and Dallas’s Jamie Benn.

Pittsburgh reached the Stanley Cup Final by defeating the New York Rangers and Washington Capitals in the playoffs’ first two rounds, then dispatching the Tampa Bay Lightning in a hard-fought 7-game series for the Eastern Conference title. The nimble Pens then overwhelmed the Western Conference champion Sharks, taking leads in 5 of the 6 games.

The Sharks, who were playing in their first Stanley Cup Final, looked tired at times against the faster Penguins. Centers Joe Thornton and Logan Couture and goalie Martin Jones were standouts on the losing side. The Sharks reached the Final by defeating the talented St. Louis Blues 4 games to 2 for the Western Conference title. The Sharks had earlier outlasted the burly Los Angeles Kings and the Nashville Predators.

June 12, 2012

When the 2011-2012 Stanley Cup play-offs began, the Los Angeles Kings were not on the radar of most hockey fans. The Kings qualified as the eighth seed for the 2011-2012 play-offs and no eighth seed had ever won the cup. Indeed, the Los Angeles franchise had never won a Stanley Cup since it entered the National Hockey League (NHL) as an expansion team for the 1967-1968 season.

But on June 11, at 7:48 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, the Los Angeles Kings became the kings of North American hockey. The team had just defeated the New Jersey Devils by a lopsided 6-1 score, completing one of the great runs in Cup history. The Kings defeated the top three seeds in the Western Conference to reach the finals. Los Angeles lost only four games throughout the play-offs, two of them in the finals. The team won a remarkable 10 straight games on the road.

The Stanley Cup, awarded annually to the team that wins the National Hockey League (NHL) championship, is the oldest trophy in professional sports competition in North America.The cup (held by defenseman Scott Niedermayer of the Anaheim Ducks) is engraved with the names of the winning teams and their players. (© Getty Images)

There were plenty of heroes on the Kings’ roster, none bigger than goalie Jonathan Quick, who posted three shut-outs and was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the Most Valuable Player for the play-offs. Also in the mix for the trophy were Kings right winger Dustin Brown, center John Carter, and defenseman Drew Doughty. They and their teammates combined to deliver one of the more improbable victories in NHL history.

Additional World Book article:

• Hockey Hall of Fame