Shawn Michaels is coming to Pittsburgh for Game 5 on Sunday night!
Should be fun for everyone. Still pretty shocked this all came together, but that's the power of social media. It will be fun to see what the Penguins crack staff comes up with for him on Sunday.
Also, the HBK line brings back memories of another fun line in Pittsburgh Penguins history; the terrific season in 2000-01 of the Martin Straka - Robert Lang - Alexei Kovalev line.
Consider:
--Both lines were overshadowed, to an extent by superstar teammates. That happened to be a Gold Medal, Stanley Cup winning Canadian icon (Mario Lemieux then, Sidney Crosby now) as well as a talented stud European scoring champion (Jaromir Jagr / Evgeni Malkin)
--Both got to play in front of goalie sensations in the playoffs that spent most of their seasons in the AHL (Johan Hedberg, Matt Murray)
--Both lines have a small left-winger with speed to burn and amazing puck-skils (Straka and Carl Hagelin)
--Both lines have a savvy center that's good at everything, elite at nothing and something of an after-thought on both lines (Lang and Nick Bonino)
--Both lines capped by the show-stopping, game-breakers on right wing that have tremendous talent and scoring ability, but also catch media-driven heat for questioning their commitment to the game (Kovalev and Phil Kessel)
Funny how history can repeat itself like that, huh?