It Brings Me Absolutely No Joy At All To Announce The Pittsburgh Penguins Are Officially Cooked
Christian Petersen. Getty Images.Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang both broke into the league together in the 2006-07 season with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Since then, they've both played over 1000 games for Pittsburgh. They've won 3 Stanley Cups together. They've been around forever. But sometimes when you're in a relationship for that long, you find yourself in a bit of a rut. You can't just be doing the same things over and over and over again until the end of time. You find yourself needing to spice things up a bit just to feel alive.
So last night in Arizona, the two decided they'd dabble in some role play and pretend that they were members of the Coyotes.
Oh no baby what is you doing.
There was a time when Kris Letang would have the wherewithal not to rip a backhand through the middle of his own zone towards a wide open net. There was a time when Evgeni Malkin would have the touch to never mishandle that pass coming his way. There was a time…and that time is no more.
5 straight years without a playoff series win. It's looking more and more like the Penguins are about to miss the playoffs for the 2nd year in a row. Malkin is 37. Letang is 36. Crosby is ageless but he's still up there. And now you have the boys scoring own goals against themselves while playing at a college barn in Arizona. It's been damn near 20 years at this point, but we can finally sleep peacefully at night knowing that the Penguins are cooked.
Sidenote: You want to talk about being a victim of your own success? There's a reason why this Penguins team is finally done for, and that's because they just can't keep up with the insane amount of speed and talent these young kids are coming into the game with nowadays. One of the best young players in the league was born in Pittsburgh right before Evgeni Malkin was drafted. He grew up playing for Crosby's Little Penguins program. And last night, Logan Cooley pulled off this filthy assist to get the game started.
Maybe if the Penguins sucked during all those years, Logan Cooley would have grown up playing football. Maybe he would have fell in love with an instrument or something. But the Penguins were winning Stanley Cups during his formative years, inspired him to become absolutely grotesque at the game of hockey, and now he's dunking on the Penguins all these years later. God, I love a happy ending.