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It is a cliche that championships are rooted in a strong team effort.
Of course, it also is true.
Consider the Penguins, whose Stanley Cup this spring stemmed from contributions from every part of their organization.
What the Penguins got from coach Mike Sullivan and his staff — as well as high-profile veterans such as Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel, among others — was not necessarily surprising. Might even have been expected.
What could not have been foreseen was all that young guys like Matt Murray, Bryan Rust, Tom Kuhnhackl and Conor Sheary would do to make the title happen.
“When you’re talking about third-round picks, sixth-round picks, seventh-round picks, free agents like Conor Sheary, you’re not expecting it to happen that quickly,” associate general manager Jason Botterill said.
“For them to not only come up and play games but play significant roles … a lot of them certainly stepped up.”
Getting so much from those players made the Penguins’ victory even more gratifying than usual for management, scouts and development staffers.
“Obviously, whenever you win the Stanley Cup, it’s a great feeling,” Botterill said. “But … everybody in our organization felt a part of this one.
“Our scouts were so excited about the kids we drafted and that they weren’t high-end picks, a lot of them. Our development staff worked with them, and then our minor league staff.”
It’s not that the Penguins hadn’t recognized the potential of the talent in their developmental pipeline. Just that they didn’t anticipate so many having such an impact, so quickly.
“We were very excited about (having) Conor Sheary in our organization, but to say we projected him to be playing alongside Sidney Crosby in the Stanley Cup final? No,” Botterill said.
“We loved Matt Murray and we loved his development path, but did we see him as being a starting goalie, as a second-year pro, in the Stanley Cup final? No.”
Assistant GM Bill Guerin said it was key that those young players accepted the niches into which they were placed.
“One of the things we preach a lot — and which these kids did so well — is to take advantage of their opportunity,” he said. “When you get to this level, everybody has scored before. Everybody has been a goal-scorer, or a point-getter or whatever.
“But when they accept a third- or fourth-line role, or a penalty-killing role, and excel at it, they’re doing whatever it takes to not just make it, but to make an impact.”
Guerin praised not only the Penguins’ current scouts, development staff and minor-league coaches, but guys like Tom Fitzgerald, Dan MacKinnon and John Hynes now working under ex-Penguins GM Ray Shero in New Jersey.
“They had a huge hand in it,” he said.
Hynes was viewed as an NHL coach-in-waiting in his days with the Penguins’American Hockey League affiliate in Wilkes-Barre. His successor, Clark Donatelli, is on a similar track.
Prospects like Jake Guentzel, Oskar Sundqvist and Tristan Jarry playing for Donatelli appear to be close to stepping into the NHL.
Whether the next wave of young players can be as much of a factor as the one that arrived last season remains to be seen, but winning the Cup in 2016 provided the ultimate validation of the Penguins’ approach to constructing a contender.
“It shows that what we’ve built and what we believe in our drafting and development and minor league plan worked,” Guerin said. “It worked to help us achieve the ultimate goal.”