Three Peat?

For the past two seasons the Pittsburgh Penguins have won the Stanley Cup. In the 2016 Stanley Cup Finals they defeated the San Jose Sharks 4 games to 2 games and in the 2017 Stanley Cup Finals they defeated the Nashville Predators 4 games to 2 games.

This upcoming NHL season everyone wants to see if the Penguins can win the Stanley Cup again for the third consecutive season. The last time an NHL team won the Stanley Cup for three consecutive years was when the New York Islanders did it from 1980-1983. Except the Islanders were able to win the Cup for four years in a row.

After the Penguins won the Stanley Cup in 2016 mostly all of the players returned for the 16-17 season. This time going into the 17-18 season a good amount of their players have left to go on somewhere else. A lot of people would say that since a lot of the Penguins players have left this offseason that they are not going back to the Finals and even try for three in a row. But this team is capable to go back to the Stanley Cup Finals and win a Stanley Cup for the third consecutive year.

I can say right away that the Penguins can get back to the Eastern Conference Finals once again this season because they have a lot of elite players still like Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jake Guentzel, Kris Letang, Phil Kessel, Patric Hornqvist, Carl Hagelin, Ian Cole and Olli Maatta and Matt Murray. As long as the Penguins have this group of guys for years to come the Penguins will always get to the Conference Finals.

The players the Penguins lost this offseason is not going to hurt the Penguins at all as they look to three peat.

Trevor Daley is happy enough that he has at least one ring and now he realizes that since he has two rings that he should go to another team that gives him more money so he can take care of his family. The Detroit Redwings gave Trevor the money he wanted. I wouldn't say he was one of the top three defensemen for the Penguins so I was fine for him leaving.

Both Ron Hainsey and Matt Cullen have gotten so old that it's for the best that they didn't come back to the Penguins. I don't think Ron can turn the Maple Leafs around and I guess Matt still likes hockey that he decided to play with the Minnesota Wild. I thought he would've just rode into the sunset since he just win the Cup for back to back seasons and he is about to turn 41 this November but hey whatever.

Mark Streit didn't really play a lot during his time with the Penguins last year so it was okay that he went to Montreal. Nick Bonino made some good memorable plays with the Penguins but no one in the front office for the Penguins or the fan base of the Penguins was going to start crying a river if Bonino decided to leave. I actually find it very funny that Bonino went to the team he just defeated in the Stanley Cup Finals in the Nashville Predators.

Marc-Andre Fleury realized that he lost his starting job and Matt Murray is the goalie of the future for the Penguins. The Vegas Golden Knights selected Fleury in the expansion draft and he is expected to become a starter once again for that team. The sad thing is that Fleury might only play two more seasons left and it turns out their going to be with the Golden Knights and he might not even make the playoffs at all since they are starting from scratch. I actually think the Golden Knights could've drafted more players in the expansion draft that could've made an impact for the team instead of drafting young guys for the future that haven't really played a single NHL game yet.

The player however the Penguins are really going to miss most is Chris Kunitz because he was not afraid to play and was not afraid of taking a hit. He also hit a lot of players to while he was with the Penguins and definitely was considered one of the toughest players that Penguins had. He scored a lot of goals as well to keep the Penguins in games.

The Penguins however this offseason got some good pickups as they picked up a veteran goalie in Antti Niemi who will be the Penguins backup goalie. The nice thing is that the Penguins are only paying him $700,000 this year. That's so nice with all the playoff experience Niemi has had. The Penguins also picked up Matt Hunwick who is similar to a Nick Bonino but a little older. The Penguins this offseason traded Oskar Sundqvist to the St. Louis Blues in exchange for Ryan Reaves. Ryan Reaves is a player that will fight anybody and knock up people. Actually I think his main goal besides winning a Stanley Cup is to knock players up.

The Penguins still have to face the Capitals, the Rangers and the Blue Jackets if they want to get back to the Cup Finals but just because they lost some players it won't hurt them for chasing Lord Stanley for the third consecutive year as the Penguins Captain Sidney Crosby starts to realize that since he has won more cups that if he wins a couple more he could be known as the greatest NHL hockey player to ever live.