(Ed. Note: As the Stanley Cup Playoffs continue, we're bound to lose some friends along the journey. We've asked for these losers, gone but not forgotten, to be eulogized by the people who knew the teams best: The fans who hated them the most. Here's Kyle Scott of Philadelphia sports blog Crossing Broad, fondly recalling the 2011-12 Pittsburgh Penguins. Again, this was not written by us ... OK, by all of us. Also: This is a roast and you will be offended by it, so don't take it so seriously.)

By Kyle Scott, Crossing Broad

Friends, family, Yinzers, Dan Bylsma's glasses, other assembled dignitaries and steelworkers: We gather today to mark the passing of the 2011-2012 Pittsburgh Penguins, the team that even its own fans grew to hate.

And I'm here not to celebrate their abbreviated existence, but to salute their timely death.

Because I don't like them.

Onward.

We must rewind to last season to fully understand the 2011-2012 Pittsburgh Penguins (who, unfortunately, had their round of 18 cancelled today due to the inclement weather in the Steel City).

October, 2010. Little-known rookie goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky was - shockingly - given the start for the Flyers in the season opener, the first regular season game to ever be played at the CONSOL Energy Center. There Bob sat, hours before the game, alone, in the vast expanse of the Penguins' new home. The Igloo it was not, this lone gem amongst a thicket of bridges, steam, and dirty-blonde mustaches.

The picture foreshadows what was to come. This new building, constructed with gamblers money, would prove not as intimidating as its predecessor, as was evidenced by the fact that this rookie goaltender - the young Russian seated alone in the stands - was able to earn his first career victory in front of 19,000 undoubtedly torched Yinzers.

Spoiling the building's baptism was just the start, though. The Flyers would go on to a 7-2 record at the CONSOL Energy Center over the next two seasons.

Later in the 2010-2011 campaign, the Penguins became the darlings of the NHL (if the nonstop manual stimulation from the league and NBC hadn't done so already). Along with the Washington Capitals, they were featured on HBO's 24/7.

Whether it was due to clever editing, a nearly month-long win streak at the time, or the way in which Bylsma's striking glasses contrasted with Bruce Boudreau's dribble, the Penguins and their coach came across as a fairly likable group. Even Sidney Crosby seemed like something other than the whiny, overrated, pond-eating scum of a hockey player that he is.

[Related: Philadelphia Flyers playoff T-shirt mocks Sidney Crosby]

Unfortunately for him, the show climaxed with Pittsburgh's captain getting his bell rung on a seemingly innocuous hit, and it would be almost a year before the Penguins could wrestle him back from the brain-eating monsters that would have made even the Hulu folks jealous.

Sid's nap time partner and the league's ugliest player, Evgeni Malkin, would also suffer an unfortunate fate in 2011, as he missed the end of the season with a blown apart knee.

That sent the Penguins into an early summer filled with key questions that needed addressing.

This is where they sealed their eventual fate.

General manager Ray Shero low-balled Stanley Cup hero Max Talbot by only offering the free agent-to-be a three-year deal. Perhaps Shero was saving money for the anticipated return of Jaromir Jagr, the second greatest player to ever lace them up for the Penguins.

Thus ended Talbot's time in Pittsburgh... and began the corny #Jagrwatch: life-needing Pittsburgh fans and bloggers tracking the status and location of their former star as he seemed destined to return to Pennsylvania's other city. Which he didn't.

Insert the Philadelphia Flyers.

On July 1, capping off a two-week period in which Paul Holmgren was a man with a gun (and a credit card), the Flyers swooped in and signed both Jagr and Talbot, just hours apart.