15 reasons this NHL season took place in the Upside Down

10. Penguins still know how to fly

Somehow, some way, the Pittsburgh Penguins continue to defy all logic and tradition in the NHL. Didn’t they know they were supposed to flame out this season after taking the deepest of runs each of the last two seasons?

But the Penguins’ specific version of the Upside Down means that they ended up being pretty much as good as they were in their previous two seasons. The seasons in which, oh yeah, they won Stanley Cups. Somehow, Sidney Crosby stayed healthy (and scored some crazy-awesome goals), even after playing the maximum games for the last two seasons as well as the maximum games in the World Cup of Hockey in 2016.

Evgeni Malkin held up his end of the bargain by continuing to perform as the most underappreciated superstar in the league. Beleaguered No. 1 Matt Murray, he of the two Stanley Cups in his two seasons but of questionable regular-season durability, managed to stay healthy long enough to backstop the Penguins and sort of make them forget that Marc-Andre Fleury had gone elsewhere and was winning at the casinos. A Penguins three-peat is not out of the question, which is about as Upside Down as you can get in the modern era.