Boston Bruins @ Pittsburgh Penguins
Series Tied 0-0

NBC, CBC, RDS - 8:00 pm/et

Consol Energy Center - Pittsburgh, PA

Remember the Pittsburgh Penguins? If not, here's a bit of a refresher.

The Pittsburgh Penguins are a professional hockey team that plays in the National Hockey League. The team had a pretty successful 2013 season. They entered the Stanley Cup Playoffs as the number one seed in the Eastern Conference. After some difficulties early on, the Penguins eliminated the New York Islanders in the first round of the playoffs. They then moved on to face the Ottawa Senators. The Penguins defeated the Senators in five games. Things were looking good for the Penguins until, one day, they just disappeared.

Time passed. Nations shifted. Society grew and evolved. And all of this happened without the Pittsburgh Penguins playing a single hockey game. It was almost as if the team, and their future opponents the Boston Bruins, had completely vanished. No one understood why this occurred.

Now, after a long and painful absence, the Pittsburgh Penguins return tonight. 

How will the fans react? Will they remember team stars such as Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and James Neal? Will they even remember the rules of the sport that this team once played? After such a long absence, it's understandable if memory has become foggy. How will the Consol Energy Center handle the return of this team after such a long, long wait? Does the Consol Energy Center even still exist? 

All of these questions and more will be answered tonight when the Eastern Conference Final begins. It has been far, far too long. Drop the puck already.

( spotted at the Eat'nPark at South Hills Village)

Almost there. Final round up of some links.

-- Mike Colligan with a must-read on the Bruins systems.  [ THW ]

In the picture below, the Bruins dumped the puck to Douglas Murray’s (3) corner.  He passed it to Matt Niskanen (2) behind the net and we see F2 attack the puck:

Niskanen’s easiest option under pressure is to fire the puck around the boards to the far-side winger.  In this case, Beau Bennett (19) is seeing the play develop and skating hard to get in position for an outlet pass.  The center Pascal Dupuis (9) is swinging into position for support.

Colligan's work here is so good. He shows how the Pens will respond as well. 

-- @TPBAdam was quoted in this story about Ryan Mill. [ PG ] 

We were probably Mill's toughest critics when he first started. He's tweaked his act, solid efforts by him of late.

-- It's June. whoa.

--  The Trib is feeling Morrow. [ TRIB ]

-- Awesome piece on why Canada Can't win a cup. [ NY TIMES ]

-- Cool infograph from TSN:

Boston is the worst. In any series or championship game, if a team is slightly better than the Boston team, that Boston team becomes legendary underdogs. This only happens because Boston sports fans have two issues.

It is all built into the Boston Underdog Syndrome. Read on to find out more...

We've already covered the forwards and defensemen.

PENS POWER PLAY

The Pens had a 24.7% during the regular season, and that number has jumped up to 28.3% in the playoffs.

The Bruins' PK, meanwhile, was 4th-best during the regular season at 87.1%, but that number has dropped to 81.1% in the post-season.

PENS PENALTY KILL

The Bruins' PP was a flaccid 14.8% in the regular season, but they're clicking at 21.9% in the playoffs.

The Pens' PK was garbage during the regular season at a sub-80% level, but they're working miracles at an 89.7% rate in the playoffs.

REGULAR SEASON HEAD-TO-HEAD

Pens PP: 2 for 11, 18.1%

Pens PK: 6 for 8, 75%

HIDDEN STAT

Malkin didn't play in any of the 3 Pens-Bruins games this season.

SO...

The Pens have avoided the dagger that is power-play goals so far in these playoffs. If that trend continues, the Pens should be in good shape.

At the other end of the ice, the Pens' PP is close to being absurd. They used timely powerplay goals to bury both the Islanders and Sens. The Bruins have some big bodies to clear out the crease in front of Tuukka Rask.

Speaking of which...

According to the Internet this is a bar in Pittsburgh:

They should just ban all Sam Adams beers. Everywhere.

Go Pens.

(Pic at media level in CONSOL)

We were walking down 5th Ave yesterday and literally ran into @seangentille. He told us about a Jagr piece he was working on.

It is fantastic. Read it here.

Never noticed this for some reason:

This happened on Wednesday night:

So did this:

This, too:

In other news...

What to expect from Double J in this series...

Pittsburgh Business Times says the city will generate $4mill for every home game this round...

We've already looked at the Bruins' offense.

Bruins coach Claude Julien shook things up at a practice leading up to this series.

If you've been watching the playoffs, all of these names ring a bell. The Bruins' defense isn't flashy or even well known, but the fact of the matter is they play well as a unit. Coupled with Rask, this defensive corps has a 2.33 GAA in these playoffs, which is better than the Penguins.

Mike Colligan of The Hockey Writers has already laid out what should be the Pens' game plan:

From a forechecking perspective, the Penguins need to 'invest' themselves early in this series.  What does that mean?  Toronto did it perfectly late in their first round matchup against the Bruins.  Chip the puck into the corner, let the Bruins defensemen pick it up, then punish them physically.  Over and over and over again.  The chip-and-chase approach isn't ideal for winning a single game, but making the physical investment early in a series will pay off in later games.

Some coaches refer to this as "taking a chunk out of the defensemen".  Every hit from Kunitz, Dupuis, Neal, Iginla, Cooke, Morrow, Vitale and Kennedy is another chunk.  Chara and Seidenberg will have time to recover a bit during the long layoff, but make no mistake -- they're battered.

Now we're gonna take a look at all the Bruins defensemen...