On May 12, 2015, the Manchester Monarchs beat the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, 2-1, at Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. The victory gave the Monarchs a 4-1 series win in the Calder Cup Eastern Conference semifinals, and ended the Penguins’ season.
In the lineup for Wilkes-Barre that night were Brian Dumoulin, Tom Kuhnhackl, Bryan Rust, Conor Sheary and, in net, Matt Murray.
Until Monday night, that night — nearly three years ago to the day — was the last time those five players had lost a playoff series.
When Evgeny Kuznetsov scored the overtime winner in the Capitals’ 2-1 Game 6 victory at PPG Paints Arena, it forced a number of Penguins players to reckon with something they had never experienced in their NHL career — their season ending without a Stanley Cup.
“I’m not sure [how to process it], to be honest,” Rust said. “This is my first go-around with this, so I don’t really know. I guess just take it as it comes and learn what you can.”
That was the message Mike Sullivan hoped to send to his players, particularly the young ones, in the wake of a playoff departure that, despite being a real possibility going into this game, still felt sudden and surprising.
“I think sometimes we all learn more from our failures than we do our successes,” Sullivan said. “I think this group knows how hard it is to win in the playoffs. All the teams are really good and there’s a fine line between winning and losing.
“We haven’t tasted this in a long time, and that’s a credit to the group of players that are in that dressing room. Because they’ve been a hungry group, they’ve accomplished so much and I couldn’t be more proud of them as their coach because of that.”
Kuhnhackl, who was nearly the unlikely hero with an overtime wrist shot that clanged off the post, acknowledged he wasn’t quite sure how to move forward after a playoff run that didn’t end in June.
“Right now, it’s just hard to find words,” he said. “For most of us, this is new. Obviously, it’s really disappointing. This feeling is probably not going to go away for a couple of days.”
It’s no consolation for Murray, but this elimination game did go better for him than the last one. In that 2015 Calder Cup game, he was pulled in the first period after giving up two goals.
“He’s another one of our guys that hasn’t really tasted defeat in a long time,” Sullivan said. “Hopefully, I know we’ll all learn from it. We’ll all become better people and better players as a result.”
Murray was mostly excellent Monday night, keeping the Penguins alive into the overtime. But when Kuznetsov’s shot slipped through his legs, he was left to grapple with the defeat all the same.
“It’s an empty feeling,” he said. “That’s the best way I can describe it, to be honest.”
Even for some of the veterans, Monday night was a bitter new experience.
Justin Schultz tasted the postseason for the first time when he came over to the Penguins in 2016.
He was a role player on the first Cup team and blossomed into a legitimate star defenseman over the past two years. But Monday night was the first time he learned what it felt like to lose a playoff series.
“It’s a different feeling, for sure,” he said. “Not used to it. It just [stinks]. This is a good group in here and we thought we had a chance to do something special. It just [stinks] right now.”
It’s not just the players, either.
This is an experience Sullivan hasn’t dealt with in a while, either. The most recent time he lost an NHL series as a head coach was in 2004, when his Bruins dropped Game 7 of their first-round series against Montreal.
“I think over the next little while, I’m going to have to digest it myself to see what the takeaway might be,” he said. “Certainly, losing’s tough. We’re all in it to win and it stings. It stings when you lose. As I said, sometimes you learn more from your failures than you do your successes.”
The Penguins are certainly hoping that’s the case, because even though this might be a new experience for many of their players, it’s not one they hope to get accustomed to.
“Everyone expects a lot in here from each other,” Kuhnhackl said. “We’ve had this before last year and the year before, where we were down and had to win a game. We knew what it takes to win this game, and obviously it didn’t go our way.
“Just really disappointed, but like I said, this team, we’re going to come back next year and we’re going to play better.”
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Sam Werner: swerner@post-gazette.com and Twitter @SWernerPG.
First Published: May 8, 2018, 3:29 a.m.