Sharks, Penguins get ready for Game 1 of Stanley Cup Final

Reporting from Pittsburgh â€”  Greetings from Pittsburgh, where the Stanley Cup Final will begin Monday night when the Penguins play host to the Sharks at Consol Energy Center.

Unfortunately for sports fans — especially those in the Bay Area — Game 7 of the NBA’s Western final between the Golden State Warriors and Oklahoma City Thunder also will take place Monday night. That means fans might have to divide their loyalties, or make frequent use of their TV remotes.

“It sucks because I wanted to watch the game. I was hoping it would be tomorrow,� Sharks forward Joel Ward said. “It was an epic game there last game, with OKC. Oh man, it was fun to watch. It was cool to see. It just sucks that it’s got to be on the same day.�

Puck drop for the Sharks and Penguins is scheduled for 5:22 p.m. Pacific time. The Warriors and Thunder will tip off about an hour later. “Maybe catch some,� Ward said. “I guess the last minute of basketball games is a little bit longer, so hopefully we’ll get a chance to see a little bit at the end.�

Getting back to hockey and final preparations for the Game 1, Penguins forward Nick Bonino and defenseman Kris Letang said they will play Monday after missing practice because of injuries. Bonino, a former Duck, was hurt when he blocked a shot in Game 7 of the Penguins’ Eastern Conference final victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Bonino said the Penguins are intent on riding the crowd’s emotion to get a strong start. “We have home ice for a reason. We had a really good year and we don’t want to squander it by having a bad start or letting them take the play to us,� he said. “We’ll come out, we’ll play hard in our building with our fans behind us, and hope to get up early.�

Letang is one of six Penguins who played on the team’s 2009 Cup championship squad (the others are Sidney Crosby, Marc-Andre Fleury, Chris Kunitz, Ben Lovejoy — who was traded to Anaheim and then came back — and Evgeni Malkin). Letang said his role has become more prominent since that first trip to the final, when he was 21. He averaged 19 minutes and 18 seconds’ ice time during the 2009 playoffs but this spring has averaged 28:47 in the 17 games he has played.

“Yeah, it’s a little bit different in that regard,� he said. “But if I look at it as a group, it’s a little bit similar. We had new additions that kind of boosted our lineup, we had a coaching change during the year. It gave us a spark.

“Going there, we climbed a hard road. We faced a big rivalry team in the playoffs. We had to face the Flyers when we won in ‘09, too. Kind of the same road, but different road.�

Sharks Coach Peter DeBoer, who guided the New Jersey Devils to the final in 2012 only to lose to the Kings, said he didn’t plan to deliver any Cup-themed pregame speech Monday or otherwise deviate from the team’s playoff routine.

“Our approach all along has been business as usual. I think the guys have realized as we got through the L.A. series, as we got through Nashville, Game 7, as we got through a really tough St. Louis team, even at the different points of adversity facing elimination against Nashville, we didn’t change,� he said. “There were no magic speeches. There were no big line combination changes or roster changes or changes to our system.

“There’s a belief in what we do and the people we have. We’re going to keep rolling that out until someone hands us a Cup or tells us to go home.�

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is scheduled to hold a news conference before Monday’s game, as he usually does during the Cup final. He’s likely to be asked for an update on possible expansion as well as about the league’s negotiations with the International Ice Hockey Federation and the NHL Players’ Assn. on sending players to the 2018 Winter Olympics.

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