Don't Count on a Penguins Letdown: Staying Hungry Is Part of Pittsburgh's Nature

PITTSBURGH — Matt Cullen remembers thinking it might come easy in Game 5.

His Carolina Hurricanes were up three games to one on the Edmonton Oilers in the 2006 Stanley Cup Final, with Game 5 and all of its pageantry set to unfold with one more win in front of the home fans. One Fernando Pisani overtime goal for the Oilers later, Cullen and the Hurricanes had to go back on the airplane for the roughly six-hour journey to Edmonton.

The Hurricanes lost Game 6, too, and suddenly were down to one last chance, in a Game 7, to get a Cup that seemed like a done deal a few days before.

One decade later, Cullen, now with the Pittsburgh Penguins, would like to avoid a five-hour flight back to San Jose.

Keith Srakocic/Associated Press

He and the Pens hold a similar 3-1 lead over the Sharks, and they want to finish the deed in Game 5 at Consol Energy Center Thursday night.

"We've earned an opportunity, and that's it," Cullen said after Game 4. "We haven't done anything yet. It's easy to get too far ahead of yourself. It's easy to pat yourself on the back. We've worked hard, and we've earned it, but that's all we've done is give ourselves an opportunity. Unless you come out with the attitude of taking advantage of it, it doesn't matter. We've got to understand that this next one is going to be the toughest one."

The Penguins will have had two non-game days between Games 4 and 5, which might worry some coaches in terms of possible complacency or too much time to think. But Pittsburgh head coach Mike Sullivan doesn't believe the extra day will have a negative effect on his team, telling media on a conference call Tuesday:

"

We've got some guys in there that have this in perspective, that have been through similar experiences in the past. I think our guys are very grounded. They understand the challenge in front of us. We just have to focus on that one game, and we've got to bring our very best for that one game. That's all that we can control. 

We have to try to do our best to ignore some of the noise surrounding the group. I think our players are well-aware of it. They've been through it the whole postseason. We've been through it a number of elimination games already. They've handled themselves the right way.

"

Still on the Penguins team that last won the Cup in 2009 are Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Marc-Andre Fleury, Kris Letang, Ben Lovejoy and Chris Kunitz. That 2009 Cup Final, against Detroit, saw the Penguins come back from a 3-2 deficit. 

"Our players are well-aware, just based on their comments after the game [Monday] night, excited to be in the position we're in, but by no means do we think that we've accomplished what we've set out to do," Sullivan said. "We still have a lot of work ahead of us. Our players are well-aware of that. We have a lot of respect for the San Jose Sharks, how good their team is. We know that we're going to need our very best in order to accomplish our ultimate goal."

After Game 4, team owner Mario Lemieux stood outside the cramped visitors dressing room of the SAP Center, unable to go in from lack of space. Lemieux is the living legend of the organization, but he still looks fit and trim at age 50. 

Lemieux, a cancer survivor, is also a reminder of how well the Penguins have evolved with the times. An organization that once seemed hopelessly mired in the past, one that went bankrupt twice and needed financial rescue partially from Lemieux himself, has reinvented itself as a young, fast team that is one win away from its fourth Stanley Cup. Lemieux, the mainstay, has his name on the Cup from the three previous wins—twice as a player (1991 and 1992) and once as an owner (2009).

This is an organization that, like Lemieux, could have dined out a while longer on past glories but chose to stay hungry. This is a team that had a winning record on Dec. 12 of this season (15-10-3), which would have thrilled many in the NHL. Not Lemieux's Penguins.

Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press

He, along with the rest of upper management, chose to fire coach Mike Johnston, believing quite rightly this team was capable of much better.

Now that so much has been accomplished since that early-season turbulence, Penguins defenseman Ian Cole, who scored Pittsburgh's first goal in Game 4, said his team isn't one to rest on its laurels.

"I think we're enjoying every game as it comes right now and not looking ahead anymore than one game," Cole said. "I think that's a tribute to the leadership we have in this room and overall in our management."

With a win Thursday, the next game to look ahead toward won't come until October. That would undoubtedly be OK with the Penguins.

Adrian Dater covers the NHL for Bleacher Report.