Washington Capitals left wing Alex Ovechkin skates in a game against the Carolina Hurricanes.
Credit: © Andy Martin Jr, Alamy Images

GOAL! In December, professional hockey player Alex Ovechkin, who plays for the Washington Capitals, became the player with the second most goals in NHL history with 802 goals. He passed Gordie Howe’s record of 801 points. Hockey star Wayne Gretzky holds the number one record with 894 goals. However, Ovechkin isn’t retiring anytime soon!

He scored two goals in a game against the Winnipeg Jets on Friday, December 23rd, 2022. His first goal of the game tied him with Howe in the first quarter. With one minute left in the third quarter, he gracefully shot the puck into the goal to beat Howe’s record. The Capitals defeated the Jets 4 to 1.

Alexander Ovechkin is a Russian-born hockey player. He is one of the stars of the National Hockey League (NHL). Ovechkin, a left wing for the Washington Capitals, led the NHL in scoring with 112 points (65 goals and 47 assists) in the 2007-2008 season. He has led the league in goals scored nine times (2007-2008, 2008-2009, 2012-2013, 2013-2014, 2014-2015, 2015-2016, 2017-2018, 2018-2019, and 2019-2020).

Ovechkin won the Hart Memorial Trophy as the NHL’s Most Valuable Player for the 2007-2008, 2008-2009, and 2012-2013 seasons. He also won the Lester B. Pearson Award (now the Ted Lindsay Award) for the 2007-2008, 2008-2009, and 2009-2010 seasons. The award is given to the most outstanding player in the NHL as voted by the league’s players. In 2018, Ovechkin led Washington to its first Stanley Cup championship. He was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the Most Valuable Player in the 2018 playoffs.

Ovechkin was born on September 17th, 1985, in Moscow, U.S.S.R. (now Russia). He began playing hockey with Dynamo Moscow in the Russian Super League in 2001 at the age of 16 and spent four seasons with the team. Ovechkin was chosen by Washington as the first player selected in the 2004 NHL draft. However, he did not play with the Capitals until 2005, because the 2004-2005 NHL season was canceled due to a labor dispute between the players and owners. Ovechkin won the Calder Memorial Trophy in 2006 as the NHL Rookie of the Year. His 65 goals in 2007-2008 set an NHL record for left wingers.

Ovechkin helped the Russian national team win the men’s world championship in 2008. He played for Russia in the 2006 and 2010 Olympic Games.

Colorado Avalanche plays the Tampa Bay Lightning for the 2022 Stanley Cup.
Credit: © Dirk Shadd, Tampa Bay Times/ZUMA Press/Alamy Images

The Colorado Avalanche defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 2 to 1 on Sunday, winning the best-of-seven Stanley Cup Finals, the National Hockey League’s championship, four games to two. They overcame a controversial penalty call in Game 5 and a 1-0 deficit early in Game 6 to secure the team’s first Stanley Cup victory since 2001.

Twenty-three-year-old defenseman Cale Makar was unanimously selected as the Conn Smythe Trophy for most valuable player in the playoffs. He racked up 8 goals and 21 assists during the playoffs. Veteran center Nathan MacKinnon accrued 13 goals and 11 assists during the playoffs. 

After a solid regular season, journeyman goaltender Darcy Kuemper had a mixed performance in the playoffs including a Game 3 Finals loss in which he gave up five goals on 22 shots. Kuemper stepped up Game 6, however, blocking 22 out of 23 Tampa Bay shots on goal. 

The Avs denied the Lightning a chance at a third consecutive Stanley Cup win. The Lightning were trying to win three in a row for the first time since the New York Islanders won four consecutive Finals from 1980-1983. 

Like thunderclouds approaching a mountain overburdened with snow, the Avalanche and the Lightning seemed destined to meet in the 2022 Stanley Cup Finals. Colorado racked up 56 wins during the regular season, narrowly missing the Presidents’ Trophy for best regular-season record. The Lightning are a perennial powerhouse, having made it at least as far as the Eastern Conference Final six out of the last eight seasons.

Even the best teams rarely have an easy path through hockey’s second season, but the two teams’ road was less difficult than most. Only one playoff series the two teams participated went to seven games, when the Toronto Maple Leafs pushed the Bolts to the brink of eliminations during first round. Colorado swept an overmatched Edmonton Oilers team in the Western Conference Final. Tampa Bay defeated the New York Rangers in six games to take the Prince of Wales Trophy.  

The Colorado Avalanche underwent a painful rebuild to reach this point. They were the worst team in the league in 2016-2017 season. But general manager Joe Sakic (a Hall-of-Fame Avalanche player) stuck with rookie coach Jared Bednar and picked up Makar in the 2017 draft. Sakic then made a series of shrewd moves that slowly improved the team over the next few years. He acquired forwards Andre Burakovsky and Nazem Kadri and goalie Kuemper, among others, through trades. 

The Avalanche are poised to compete for the Cup for years to come. Few of their players are on the wrong side of 30. Time will tell if they can go back-to-back, as Tampa Bay did. But the Lightning aren’t going away, either, led by captain Steven Stamkos. Hockey fans may witness this elemental clash again in future playoffs.

Vancouver Canucks left wing Nils Hoglander (21) passes the puck to center Bo Horvat (53) as Seattle Kraken center Colin Blackwell (43) defends in front of goaltender Philipp Grubauer during the first period of an NHL hockey game, in Seattle
Canucks Kraken Hockey, Seattle, United States – 01 Jan 2022.
Credit: © Ted S Warren, AP Images/Shutterstock

The Seattle Kraken‘s debut season has been impacted by COVID-19 and made somewhat of a belly flop. The Kraken are a professional hockey team that plays in the National Hockey League (NHL). The Kraken compete in the Pacific Division of the Western Conference. The team plays its home games at Climate Pledge Arena, located near the Space Needle.

The Kraken began regular-season play in October 2021. The highly anticipated team has met health roadblocks that have hampered their play. With canceled practices and Covid outbreaks, defensive and offensive lines have been unable to make an effective practice.

In 2017, the city of Seattle, Washington, selected the entertainment development company Oak View Group (OVG) to renovate the city’s KeyArena. At that same time, a group of OVG executives and other investors launched a campaign to purchase an NHL expansion team. In December 2018, the NHL Board of Governors voted unanimously to approve the bid, awarding the group the 32nd NHL franchise. In June 2020, the online shopping company Amazon.com, Inc., purchased the naming rights to KeyArena and renamed it Climate Pledge Arena, after the company’s initiative to reduce its environmental impact.

In July 2020, the team was named the Seattle Kraken. In 2021, the Kraken selected players from 30 other NHL teams in an expansion draft. The NHL exempted the Vegas Golden Knights because it was a recent expansion team.

Seattle was home to many professional and amateur hockey teams before the Kraken. The Seattle Metropolitans played from 1914 to 1924 in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association. In 1917, they became the first team based in the United States to win the Stanley Cup, defeating the Montreal Canadiens of the National Hockey Association (NHA). The Canadiens and three other NHA teams formed the NHL later that year. The Metropolitans faced the Canadiens again for the Stanley Cup in 1919, but an outbreak of the Spanish flu canceled the series.

Seattle continued to host other professional hockey teams not affiliated with the NHL into the 1970’s. Two separate attempts to secure an NHL franchise for the city failed, one in the 1970’s and another in the late 1980’s and early 1990′s.

Tampa, Florida, USA. 7th July, 2021. Tampa Bay Lightning celebrate their 1-0 victory over the Montreal Canadiens to win the Stanley Cup Wednesday, July 7, 2021 in Tampa. For the second year in a row the Lightning are able to hoist the coveted Stanley Cup.
Credit: © Dirk Shadd, Tampa Bay Times/ZUMA Wire/Alamy Images

For the second time in a little over nine months, the Tampa Bay Lightning have won the Stanley Cup. The Lightning beat the Montreal Canadiens 1-0 on Wednesday, winning the best-of-seven Stanley Cup Finals four games to one.

The Lightning became the 17th National Hockey League (NHL) team to win two or more consecutive championships, though none have had as quick of a turnaround as Tampa Bay did. The team wrapped up their previous Stanley Cup championship on Sept. 28, 2020. That 2019-2020 season was greatly delayed and shorted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Teams had to compete in “bubbles” during the playoffs, isolated from everyone other than teammates and team personnel. No fans were in attendance. This year, Lightning captain Steven Stamkos and his team got to hoist the Cup on home ice in front of tens of thousands of screaming fans.

COVID-19 still loomed large over the 2020-2021 NHL season. The season began in January 2021 and was shortened to 56 games to give the Lightning and other playoff teams a short break. Several outbreaks among players forced game postponements. Border quarantine protocols kept friends and family of Lightning players from attending the fourth game of the finals in Montreal. Canadiens interim head coach Dominique Ducharme missed several playoff games due to his testing positive for the virus.

In beating the Canadiens (nicknamed the Habs), Tampa Bay goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy, nicknamed the Big Cat, extended his record to five straight series-clinching shutouts, stopping all 22 shots that came his way. He earned the Conn Smythe Trophy for the most valuable player of the playoffs for his outstanding play. The Big Cat went 16-7 with five shutouts, a .937 save percentage and a 1.90 goals-against average over his 23 playoff starts.

Vasilevskiy had set the record during the semifinals, in which the New York Islanders pushed the Lightning to the brink of elimination in their quest to repeat victory. But the goalie went 18-for-18 saves in game 7 as the Lightning defeated the Islanders by a 1-0 score. The defeat was all too familiar for the Islanders, who fell to Tampa Bay in the semifinals during the 2020 playoffs.

It’s hard to lose a playoff series when you never lose back-to-back games. The Lightning are now 14-0 after a loss over the last two Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The Tampa area has dominated North American professional sports recently. Over the last year, Tampa Bay teams have won the Stanley Cup twice, the National Football League (NFL) Super Bowl (Tampa Bay Buccaneers, which featured the first ever win for a team at their home city, since the Super Bowl is played at a prearranged site), and have appeared in the Major League Baseball (MLB) World Series (Tampa Bay Rays, losing to the Los Angeles Dodgers). With the region’s luck, it might be an attractive destination for a new National Basketball Association (NBA) or Major League Soccer (MLS) team!

June 13, 2018

Last week, on June 7, the Washington Capitals of the National Hockey League (NHL) stunned the Vegas Golden Knights with a 4-3 come-from-behind victory to win the best-of-seven Stanley Cup Final four games to one. The Capitals scored two goals midway through the third period, erasing a 3-2 deficit along with 44 years of NHL shortcomings. It was the first Stanley Cup win for Washington (D.C.), a team that had enjoyed much regular season success but none in the postseason since entering the NHL in 1974.

Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals raises the Stanley Cup after his team defeated the Vegas Golden Knights to win the Stanley Cup Final at T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada, on June 7, 2018. Credit: © Jeff Bottari, Getty Images

The Capitals long-awaited title ended the hopes of the upstart Golden Knights, a first-year expansion team that made an improbable run through the playoffs to reach the final. The freshly minted Golden Knights fans showed their appreciation, however, cheering their team off the ice after the final horn ended the season late Thursday at T-Mobile Arena on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada.

Since Washington’s first NHL season in 1974-1975, the Capitals had made just one appearance in the Stanley Cup Final, a demoralizing sweep by the Detroit Red Wings in 1998. In recent years, the Caps, led by star left winger Alex Ovechkin, tantalized their fans by winning 7 of the last 10 division championships. Much to the team’s and its fans’ disappointment, however, they were bounced early from the playoffs each time. This year was different. The Caps roared through the postseason, knocking off the Columbus Blue Jackets and the defending champion Pittsburgh Penguins before outlasting the Tampa Bay Lightning in a hard-fought seven-game Eastern Conference Final.

Ovechkin led the Caps run, and he earned the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in the playoffs. Ovechkin scored 3 of his playoff-best 15 goals in the final series against Vegas. Centers Evgeny Kuznetsov (20 assists) and Nicklas Backstrom, winger T.J. Oshie, defender John Carlson, and goalie Braden Holtby all played key roles for the Caps in the postseason. Journeyman Devante Smith-Pelly, a fourth-line forward, brought unexpected scoring to his team. He tallied seven playoff goals, including three during the final’s five games.

Compared with long-suffering Capitals fanatics, Golden Knights fans were born with silver (or was it golden?) spoons in their mouths. Vegas compiled the most successful season for a first-year expansion team in NHL history. Vegas almost paired its spoons with a big silver cup following its regular season Pacific Division crown and a rampage during the Western Conference playoffs. Led by centers William Karlsson and Jon Marchessault, wingers David Perron and Reilly Smith, defender Nate Schmidt, and star goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, the Golden Knights bested the Los Angeles Kings and San Jose Sharks before beating the Winnipeg Jets in the conference final. The Jets playoff crash continued the Stanley Cup drought for Canadian teams. The last team from north of the border to reach the final was the Vancouver Canucks in 2011, and the last Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup was the Montreal Canadiens in 1993—lamentable statistics for hockey’s home country.

Vegas was the first expansion team to reach the Stanley Cup Final in its inaugural season since the St. Louis Blues did it in 1968. Like the Golden Knights, the Blues ran out of magic in the final, where they lost to the Canadiens four games to none.

November 30, 2017

The National Hockey League (NHL) was formed 100 years ago on Nov. 26, 1917, in Montreal, Quebec. The four original teams (reorganized from the National Hockey Association) were the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, and Toronto Arenas (later the Maple Leafs). The first games were played on December 19 as the Canadiens downed the Senators 7-4 and the Wanderers outscored Toronto 10-9. The Arenas won that first NHL season, and the team advanced to a best-of-five championship series against the Vancouver Millionaires of the rival Pacific Coast Hockey Association. Toronto defeated Vancouver 3 games to 2 to take home the 1918 Stanley Cup.

This 1918 Toronto Arenas team composite shows the players and staff (and earned hardware) of the first NHL Stanley Cup champion team. Credit: Public Domain

In 1924, the Boston Bruins became the first United States team to join the NHL. In 1926, the New York Rangers, Chicago Black Hawks (later shortened to Blackhawks), and Detroit Cougars (later the Red Wings) joined the league. By 1942, the NHL consisted of Boston, Chicago, Detroit, the Canadiens, New York, and Toronto. This membership, known as the Original Six, remained unchanged until 1967. That year, the NHL doubled to 12 teams. All six new teams were in the United States. The NHL has since expanded several times, and there are currently 31 teams: 7 in Canada and 24 in the United States.

On Jan. 1, 2017, the puck dropped on centenary events with the NHL Centennial Classic, a frigid outdoor game between the Red Wings and Maple Leafs at BMO Field in Toronto. The next day, the NHL sponsored a float called “A Century of Greatness (1917-2017)” in the Rose Parade in a much-warmer Pasadena, California. Also in January, a mobile exhibition called the NHL Centennial Fan Arena began its year-long tour of NHL cities. The exhibition included the venerated Stanley Cup trophy, a pop-up hockey rink, a virtual reality Zamboni® experience, and numerous items from the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. A special NHL Centennial Exhibit also ran at the Hockey Hall of Fame throughout the year. Special centennial events also took place at the 2017 NHL All-Star Game in late January and at the NHL Hall of Fame induction ceremony in November. The NHL100 Classic, an outdoor game between the Canadiens and Senators, will wrap up the league’s centennial celebrations at Ottawa’s Lansdowne Park on December 16.

To further mark the anniversary, the league named the all-time 100 Greatest NHL Players. In a diplomatic move, the players were not presented in order of supposed greatness, but rather as a whole listed alphabetically. Naturally, the list included such ice legends as Wayne Gretzky, Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull, and Bobby Orr, as well as such current stars as Sidney Crosby, Patrick Kane, and Alex Ovechkin. The league also named the Greatest NHL Team of all time, a somewhat less diplomatic process voted on by hockey fans. The vote began with every NHL Stanley Cup champion team, from the Arenas all the way up to last season’s Pittsburgh Penguins, and was cut down to 10 finalists. Fans then gave the NHL Greatest Team honor to the 1984-1985 Edmonton Oilers. The Gretzky-led Oilers beat the Philadelphia Flyers to win the Stanley Cup that season. The second and third greatest NHL teams were named as the 1991-1992 Penguins and 1976-1977 Canadiens.

November 14, 2017

Yesterday, November 13, Finnish right wing Teemu Selanne headlined the high-scoring class inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, Ontario. Selanne, in his first year of eligibility, was joined by left wingers Dave Andreychuk and Paul Kariya and right wing Mark Recchi. Former women’s star Danielle Goyette, Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs, and college coach Clare Drake were also enshrined in the hall.

Hockey Hall of Fame, Toronto, Canada. Credit: © Shutterstock

Selanne set a National Hockey League (NHL) rookie record with 76 goals for the Winnipeg Jets during the 1992-1993 season. He went on to tally 684 goals (11th all time) and 773 assists over 21 seasons spent mostly with the Anaheim Ducks. Andreychuk scored 640 career goals and led the Tampa Bay Lightning to the team’s only Stanley Cup (NHL championship) in 2004. Kariya had 402 goals and 587 assists over 15 seasons with Anaheim, the Colorado Avalanche, the Nashville Predators, and the St. Louis Blues. Recchi won Stanley Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins (1991), Carolina Hurricanes (2006), and Bruins (2011), and racked up 577 goals and 956 assists over his 22-year NHL career.

Goyette won three Olympic medals—two gold (2002 and 2006) and one silver (1998)—playing for Canada’s women’s national team. Jacobs has owned the Bruins since 1975 and has been chairman of the NHL Board of Governors since 2007. Drake won six Canadian championships over 28 seasons as head coach at the University of Alberta. He also coached professionally with Winnipeg and the Edmonton Oilers.

June 13, 2017

On Sunday night, June 11, the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League (NHL) defeated the Nashville Predators 2-0 to win the best-of-seven Stanley Cup Final four games to two, capturing their second straight title. After scoring two late goals to win the deciding game six at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, the Pens rushed the ice to collectively and jubilantly hoist the Stanley Cup trophy. Pittsburgh, which defeated the San Jose Sharks in the 2016 final, became the first team since the Detroit Red Wings of the late 1990’s to repeat as NHL champions. This year’s championship is the team’s fifth since the Penguins joined the NHL in 1967.

Players, coaches, and staff of the Pittsburgh Penguins pose happily with the Stanley Cup trophy after winning their second-straight National Hockey League championship on June 11, 2017, in Nashville, Tennessee. Credit: © Bruce Bennett, Getty Images

Pittsburgh forward Patric Hornqvist banked in the game-winning shot off the back of Nashville goaltender Pekka Rinne with about a minute and a half to go in the third period. Pens winger Carl Hagelin then added an empty-net goal with 14 seconds remaining. The Pens’ 23-year-old goalie, Matt Murray, saved 27 shots en route to recording his second consecutive shutout to clinch the final’s tightest game. The series began on a fluky note as the Pens scored 5 goals on only 12 shots to win game one, 5-3. The ensuing games were never terribly close as the Pens dominated games two and five and the Predators easily won games three and four.

The Penguins’ captain, star center Sidney Crosby, won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in the playoffs. Crosby rang up 8 goals and 19 assists during the Pens’ postseason march, his 27 points trailing only teammate Evgeni Malkin’s playoff tally of 28 points. The Crosby-Malkin duo secured their third Stanley Cup together, their first coming in 2009. To reach the 2017 Stanley Cup Final, the Penguins finished second in the Eastern Conference’s Metropolitan Division before brushing away the Columbus Blue Jackets in the first round of the playoffs and winning tough victories over the Washington Capitals and the Ottawa Senators.

The Predators made their first Stanley Cup Final unexpectedly, having barely qualified for the playoffs with a fourth-place finish in the Western Conference’s Central Division. The Preds showed their mettle in the playoffs, however, knocking off the powerhouse Chicago Blackhawks before taking down the St. Louis Blues and Anaheim Ducks to reach the final. The team’s unlikely playoff run—behind Rinne, star defenseman P. K. Subban, and a host of talented young forwards—generated unprecedented hockey excitement in “Music City” (Nashville’s nickname), as fans roared their team to a deafening home-ice advantage while sporting gold shirts bearing the image of the team’s namesake fanged predator, a saber-toothed cat.

June 16, 2016

Gordie Howe, shown here with the 1959 Detroit Red Wings, died at age 88 on June 10, 2016. Credit: © AP Photo

Gordie Howe, one of the greatest players in hockey history, died on June 10 at the age of 88. Howe—nicknamed “Mr. Hockey”—played most of his professional career as a right wing for the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League (NHL). He retired from Detroit holding several NHL individual records. He also left a legacy as one of the most complete and respected—and physically feared—players in hockey history.

Howe played on four Stanley Cup champion teams in Detroit. He won six Hart Trophies as the NHL’s Most Valuable Player and six Art Ross Trophies as the league’s leading scorer. He retired holding NHL records for career goals (801), assists (1,049), and points (1,850). Those records were later broken by Wayne Gretzy. Howe still holds the record for games played in the NHL (1,767). He was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1972.

During his long career, Howe earned a reputation as one of the roughest players in the NHL. His son Mark—himself a Hockey Hall of Fame inductee—said his father was “the toughest, meanest guy I’ve ever seen on a pair of skates.” Howe weighed a muscular 205 pounds (93 kilograms), making him one of the heavier players in the league during his era. His physical play forced opposing players to make room for him on the ice—a factor in Howe’s prolific scoring and lack of serious injury over his long career.

Gordon Howe was born on March 31, 1928, in Floral, Saskatchewan. He joined the Red Wings in 1946 at the age of 18. In 1953, he married Colleen Joffa, a sports agent. She was active in hockey for much of her life, founding the Howe Foundation to aid needy children who wanted to play hockey.

Two years after he retired in 1971, Howe joined the Houston Aeros of the new World Hockey Association (WHA) to play with his sons Mark and Marty. He then moved to the WHA’s New England Whalers for the 1977-1978 and 1978-1979 seasons. He remained with the Whalers for the 1979-1980 season after the team joined the NHL as the Hartford Whalers. Howe appeared in a single game in 1997 for the Detroit Vipers of the International Hockey League when he was almost 70, his record sixth decade on the ice.

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.