It's June 9th, 2017. Still stoked from the Pens 6 - 0 win over Nashville last night, so I thought I'd write!

All was well from the start. My boys from The 'Burgh took games one and two at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh. Though the teams too often looked very evenly matched it was Pittsburgh who came out on top. We are now 50% of the way through successfully completing the Stanley Cup Finals.

Once you hit the playoffs, there are 16 wins required to capture Lord Stanley's Cup. That means that both Pittsburgh and Nashville had 12 wins at the start of the finals series. You need 16 to win the Cup. As of June 9 Pittsburgh has 15 wins and Nashville has 14.

Games one and two in Pittsburgh had the Pens outscoring the Predators by a score of nine to four.

Travel to Nashville for games three and four and I do not believe it was the same team in three and four as it was in one and two. Nashville beat the Pens in those two games by a score of nine to two. At that point, Nashville led in overall goals 13 to 11. Not a great discrepancy, but the Pens need to do better and needed to do better right freaking now!

Back to The 'Burgh for game five. Prior to leaving work, a friend of mine on campus (nearly as much of a hockey nut as I am) stopped me and said "You must be sweating bullets right now. I'm telling ya. It's all because of this!"

I collect pint glasses and I'd had an extra Predators pint glass for quite some time. He's got his sites set on putting together a hockey man-cave at his house, so I gave him one of the Predators pint glasses. 

Back to The 'Burgh for game five. Prior to leaving work, a friend of mine on campus (nearly as much of a hockey nut as I am) stopped me and said "You must be sweating bullets right now. I'm telling ya. It's all because of this!"

I collect pint glasses and I'd had an extra Predators pint glass for quite some time. He's got his sites set on putting together a hockey man-cave at his house, so I gave him one of the Predators pint glasses.

Having been a hockey fan for years and having played hockey for quite a while I’ve managed to become somewhat superstitious, so when he waved the Preds glass at me I had to threaten him, then decide what I was going to do.

I hadn’t watched the previous two Pens games and they lost, so superstition dictates that I should watch this game; game five. However, I ain’t got enough hair left to deal with many more of the games the Penguins tend to put me through.

It took me until almost the end of the second episode of The Big Bang Theory to come to a decision. I’m going to START watching the game, but if anything bad happens to the Pens by halfway through the first period… No, if something good doesn’t happen FOR the Penguins by halfway through the first period I’m calling it a night.

The first part of the opening period was an excruciating nail biter. I barely made it through the first 33 seconds until Sidney Crosby left Ryan Ellis and Roman Josi tripping over their jockstraps, drew a penalty on the play, and then got the primary assist on the power play goal that followed. Looks like I’ll be watching the whole game.

Six different Penguins scored in the game. Evgeny Malkin, who not only predicted that he and Phil Kessel would score in game five but also predicted that the Pens would win made good on all three predictions. Added to that, he had a goal, an assist, and a fight, completing his first Gordie Howe Hat Trick in a while.

It's clear that these two teams are developing a very healthy dislike for each other. Makes for some good, exciting hockey games. It's also going to make it much worse for whichever team ends up losing the series. If Nashville wins, can you imagine how difficult it's going to be for Crosby to congratulate and shake hands with P.K. Subban?

Subban is a more boisterous personality than is Crosby. It's gonna darned near kill him to smile and shake the hand of Pittsburgh's #87. Or #71, for that matter. He's exchanged numerous unpleasantries with Malkin as well.

Regardless, no matter which side you come down on (and you have no idea how much I want the Pens to win), we're being treated to a helluva Stanley Cup Finals series!