The Pens: Important Once Again

The Pittsburgh Penguins are currently on a seven game win streak, have won 13 of their last 14 games, and have clinched a playoff spot. The team believes it can advance far into the playoffs, and so do the fans.

This latter statement was the exact opposite last year at this time, as the team barely qualified for the postseason on the last day of the season. Attendance to home games began to falter, as fans lost interest for the boring, passive minded games the Penguins put on the ice. Their stars were not “showing up,” and the team as a whole lost its title as “Pittsburgh’s second best sports team” to the Pirates.

However, the Penguins are coming back, and making a statement. This all began to change when Mike Sullivan was hired as head coach in December, and the Penguins 5-2 victory on New Year’s Day. The team became faster, and entertaining again. Sidney Crosby and Kris Letang started playing like themselves again, and the team started their climb up the Eastern Conference.

The fans are beginning to flock back to the Penguins as well. During the first half of the season, fans at a game “booed” at every possible opportunity, it was as if the Pens played for a city like Montreal or Toronto, where every little mistake is blown up dramatically. Now, things are a little different. During the Penguins game against the Flyers on April 3^rd, fans were chanting every few seconds. Partly due to the fact, that there was a decent amount of Flyers fans there, chanting for their team often, leading to a response by Pens fans. However, fans actually cared what happened again, and were passionately moved by every play by a Flyers player they deemed “dirty.”

This might be the biggest piece of evidence of the team’s recent resurgence. Their goal is to win the Stanley Cup, but right now they have won the city back.