I don't hate the Pens nearly as much as some around here. In fact, I think it bodes well for the Kings to win a third Cup down along the road. The Pens have gone through a ton of adversity both in the lockerroom and behind the bench, and they've finally put it together again for another significant run. Good on them. I hope the Kings can do the same facing similar cap problems.
Like the Hawks, the Penguins had a bunch of success when their top guys were very young. That 2009 Cup, Crosby and Malkin were 22 or 23. What separates the Kings and Hawks is the 2010 Cup Chicago won when Kane and Toews were in their early 20's. The Hawks went through a cap purge after that, had time to regroup for a couple years, won again a couple times, then Kane and Toews got their huge contracts, then the Hawks went through another cap purge.
Crosby, Malkin, Letang, they're all in their late 20's now. The Kings main guys are mostly in that area now too, if not older. They don't have the same kind of time as the Hawks or Penguins have had to cycle through roster issues, like the Voynov problem, or Brown's lack of production relative to his cap hit, etc. Which I imagine is why Lombardi went for Sekera and Lucic, with the iron being at least warm.
The Kings might be more like the recent Red Wings. They were very good from 2007 to 2009, then Datsyuk and Zetterberg hit their 30's, Lidstrom retired, then this and that, and they've been a good team since, but not what they were for those 3 years when everything came together.
