Ron Cook: A pulsating banner raising ceremony, but a flat conclusion

I watched the pregame ceremony from start to finish Wednesday night at PPG Paints Arena and was glad I was in the throbbing building. I couldn’t take my eyes off it, which isn’t surprising because the Penguins are the best at that sort of thing. The bells. The whistles. The music. The laser lights. There was a recap of the 2017 march to the franchise’s second consecutive Stanley Cup with two players no longer with the team — Marc Andre-Fleury and Chris Kunitz — getting the biggest ovations. There was the introduction of the staff with the sights of Mike Sullivan, Jim Rutherford and, of course, Mario Lemieux nearly blowing the roof off the arena.