On a sunny June day in Downtown Pittsburgh, Mike Sullivan shared six words that turned out to be prophetic.
“Let’s do this again next year,” the Penguins’ head coach said June 15, 2016, during Pittsburgh’s last Stanley Cup parade.
Three hundred sixty-four days later, he showed up for the second date. Joined by hundreds of thousands of their fans, the Penguins capped their 50th anniversary season by marching through Downtown Pittsburgh on Wednesday, ending at Point State Park with the Stanley Cup in tow.
It was a familiar scene: In both years, the team clinched the Stanley Cup on a Sunday, parading through Downtown the following Wednesday.