Pittsburgh’s Brandon Saad, Avalanche’s new forward, was born into a Stanley Cup environment

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New Avalanche winger Brandon Saad is of Syrian descent and might not have become a hockey player if the Pittsburgh Penguins weren’t winning championships in the early 1990s.

Born in the Steel City in 1992, Saad came into the world about four months after the Penguins won the Stanley Cup for the second consecutive year. Saad, whom the Avs acquired from the Chicago Blackhawks for defenseman Nikita Zadorov on Oct. 10, feels like he was born to be a hockey player with all the excitement in Pittsburgh.

“I had older cousins that played hockey (and) when I was born the Pens were winning championships. The buzz in the city was huge at the time,” Saad, who won the Cup…