Written by Alex Prewitt at SI.com
Penguins forward Nick Bonino stood in place with both hands raised high, spinning slowly like a holiday display in a department store window, shining bright for everyone to see. The unclaimed stick of San Jose Sharks defenseman Brent Burns lay just outside the blue paint, nestled underneath the pads of his goaltender Martin Jones, and nearby Paul Martin dropped to one knee in defeat. Into the celebration from the far corner charged Kris Letang, the Pittsburgh defenseman who had no business being that deep, at least not this late into the third period of a tie game. And yet here was the opener of the 2016 Stanley Cup Final, decided by a bold rush, a smart read, and a chip shot by the center with the Civil War chinstrap.
“It was a flipper or something like that,” Letang said. “I’m just glad he put that in.”
Two minutes and 33 seconds later, after the Penguins snuffed defenseman Ben Lovejoy’s hooking minor and survived a two-man disadvantage when Jones fled to the bench, Consol Energy Center was a roaring frenzy as the horn blared on Pittsburgh’s 3–2 victory, the first by an Eastern Conference team in a Stanley Cup Final Game 1 since 2006. That was the year the Carolina Hurricanes, helmed by current Penguins GM Jim Rutherford, began the final push to the first Cup in their franchise history. On Tuesday night, with Rutherford watching his new team, several of his shrewd moves pushed Pittsburgh to a 1-0 series lead.
The third-period goal by Bonino, acquired from Vancouver last July, was merely the climax. The backhanded feed that sprung Letang at the offensive blue line came via speedster Carl Hagelin, who Rutherford re-imported to the Metropolitan Division from Anaheim at mid-season. In the opening frame, forwards Bryan Rust and Conor Sheary had become the first pair of rookies to open the Stanley Cup Final scoring since 1924, or roughly when forward Matt Cullen, the grizzled $800,000 summer signee of considerably greater value, was born. Before the game, television cameras captured coach Mike Sullivan, promoted by Rutherford from AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on Dec. 12 after Mike Johnston’s firing, instructing his charges to play “fast and fearless.”
Message heard.
“We certainly didn’t want to go into this series with a wait-and-see approach,” Sullivan said. “We didn’t want to go through a feeling-out process. We wanted to try to go out and dictate the terms right away. That’s when we play our best, when we’re on our toes and we skate. We try to do it in a calculated way.
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