Penguins edge Sharks 3-2 to take Game 1 of Stanley Cup Final

PITTSBURGH - The season San Jose arrived in the NHL, in 1991-92, the Pittsburgh Penguins captured their second consecutive Stanley Cup. They went on to win a third and to appear in an additional final, while the Sharks remained on the fringe, always chasing and chasing.

They still are, even after finally reaching the pinnacle. The Penguins squandered a two-goal lead but emerged with a 3-2 victory in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final on Monday night after Nick Bonino scored with 2:33 remaining.

Martin Jones made 38 saves for San Jose, but he could not stop the high shot from Bonino, who corralled a brilliant pass from Kris Letang that zipped past two defenders. The Penguins killed off a late power play to ruin San Jose’s debut on the sport?s grandest stage.

The wait had been torturous for the Penguins, this seven-year gap between Stanley Cup Final appearances, but it was even more so for the Sharks, playoff regulars unable three times to move past the conference finals.

The quandary confronting Bay Area sports fans Monday night: Watch San Jose’s first Stanley Cup Final in the franchise’s 25-year history, or the Golden State Warriors’ pursuit of basketball immortality?

Those who tuned in for faceoff before tipoff witnessed the Sharks ceding two goals in about a minute, but the frenetic pace slowed to mere breakneck, and the Sharks caught up, scoring twice in the second period - and controlling play in the third - before Bonino’s game-winner.

The Penguins’ roster is loaded with fast skaters, like Carl Hagelin and Phil Kessel and Bryan Rust, but their best asset is how quickly they all move - and think - together. They race up and down the ice not as forwards and defensemen but as a unit, offering support, advancing the puck, probing.

On the rush, Pittsburgh is deadlier than hemlock. Its first goal, blasted into an open net by Rust at 12:46 of the first period, came after Justin Schultz pinched into the Sharks’ zone. His shot, deflected by Marc-Edouard Vlasic, caromed toward the crease, toward Rust, who had slipped behind his defender.

Rust spent part of this season in the minor leagues, much like Conor Sheary, who extended the Penguins’ lead just 62 seconds later.

Sheary skates on a line with Sidney Crosby because he can handle the attendant expectations and responsibilities. He also does so because he can anticipate the nightly wizardry from Crosby, who chased the puck behind Justin Braun and toward the corner, gained separation with a tight turn, then whipped a no-look backhander across the ice. And because he could collect that absurd pass and blister it into the top corner past Jones.

The score was 2-0, and even a hockey novice could have discerned from the proceedings or the first-period stat sheet - 27 shot attempts, 15 on goal, for Pittsburgh - the Penguins’ dominance.

With an undisciplined penalty, the Penguins allowed San Jose’s power play - converting at a 27 percent rate in these playoffs - to prowl, and produce. Were tertiary assists awarded, one would have gone to Joel Ward, who initiated the sequence that led to Tomas Hertl’s goal at 3:02 of the second period with a deft swipe of his stick at the blue line, keeping the puck in Pittsburgh?s zone.

It was a crafty goal by Hertl, but an ugly one yielded by Matt Murray, as it zipped between his legs from a tight angle. It foretold another, this one by Patrick Marleau, making his Stanley Cup debut in his 1,577th career game. Murray’s slow reaction to Marleau’s wraparound, failing to slide to the opposite post in time, allowed the Sharks to tie it.

By ceding two consecutive goals, the Penguins again lapsed into a postseason habit. They beat Washington in Game 6 of the teams’ second-round series despite having given up a three-goal advantage, and then lost Game 5 to Tampa Bay after having led by two in the second period.

The circumstances evoked something Sharks coach Peter DeBoer had said earlier Monday.

“Every series is the same,” DeBoer said. “It’s whatever team can impose their game on the other team the quickest and for the longest.”

On Monday, that team was Pittsburgh.