The more things change, the more things stay the same. Let’s go back to last year at this… The more things change, the more things stay the same. Let’s go back to last year at this time. Mario Lemieux was the owner, Jaromir Jagr was the cornerstone of the franchise for the next decade, and the Penguins were preparing to face the Washington Capitals in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Fast forward to today: Mario is back and has become the Pens’ most valuable player, Jagr could possibly be traded during the off-season and Alexei Kovalev is the team’s new star of the future. And the Penguins will face the Washington Capitals in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. So despite all the changes in Pittsburgh this year, a familiar foe will be on the opposite side of the ice. It might be something to get upset about, if the Penguins had not beaten the Capitals in five of the last six playoff series between the two teams, all of which were played in the last 10 years. To put it in shorter terms, the Penguins have owned the Capitals. And the door of opportunities doesn’t close there. Against the top five teams in the Eastern Conference, the Penguins have gone 13-6-2-1. That includes winning records against the defending champion New Jersey Devils and the Philadelphia Flyers. But of those five teams, the only team the Penguins didn’t win the season series from was the Capitals (2-2), although one of those losses was without Mario in the lineup. As long as Toronto and Carolina, against whom Pittsburgh had a combined 2-5 record, are knocked out in the early rounds, the Stanley Cup could be coming back to Pittsburgh for the first time in almost a decade. On to some other thoughts: