On the Cusp of the Cup

1991 Stanley Cup Final, Game 6

Gameday...

For the first time in their history, the Penguins would be playing a game with the Stanley Cup in the building, ready for them to win. But first they’d have to take another game in the resilient North Stars’ raucous home rink.

The mood amongst the players was a good, positive one, recalled Troy Loney. While driving to the rink with Joe Mullen that morning for a team skate, he asked his teammate, Can you feel this? “Joey said, ‘Yeah. We don’t usually get really nervous, but we’re pretty nervous here.’ And then we both said, ‘Yeah but it’s a good nervous.’ We were just on fire at that point, and we knew there was no way we could lose that game.”

According to assistant coach Rick Kehoe, Mario Lemieux was feeling just as confident in the dressing room before the game. “(Defenseman) Grant Jennings was kind of injured and he was on the edge of going or not going that night,” recalled Kehoe. “He said, ‘Well, I should be good for the seventh game.’ And Mario just looked at him and said, ‘Nope. There’s not going to be a seventh game.’”

No one, however, was getting ahead of themselves. They knew how big the task was that lay before them. “Every guy’s got to have the game of his life,” said Phil Bourque. “If everybody does that, it’s going to be worth it."

Excerpted from The Pittsburgh Penguins: The First 25 Years by Greg Enright, available at amzn.to/3cna4N4 or http://bit.ly/2OGZeYO. https://

Pens blast Bruins 7-2 to take command of 1991 Wales Final

Back in Boston for Game 5, the Bruins opened the scoring only 40 seconds in, but the Penguins stayed poised and answered with three goals from Stevens, Lemieux and Trottier. The game became a wide-open affair and the Bruins simply had no hope of keeping up with the high-flying Penguins. 

“It takes a lot from you when they’re coming at you 100 miles per hour,” Bruin defenseman Glen Wesley told the Pittsburgh Press. “It’s tough to stop a team like that.”

Ulf Samuelsson had knocked Cam Neely off his game. Clearly frustrated, the Bruins’ main offensive threat took two retaliatory penalties away from the play, the second of which resulted in one of the Penguins’ three power play goals on the night. When the final buzzer sounded, the scoreboard read Pittsburgh 7, Boston 2. The Penguins were in complete control of the series and but one win away from advancing to their first ever Stanley Cup final.

Excerpted from The Pittsburgh Penguins: The First 25 Years by Greg Enright, available at amzn.to/3cna4N4 or http://bit.ly/2OGZeYO. https://

Mario's playoff magic puts a hex on the Flyers

The Penguins and Flyers faced off in Game 5 of a deadlocked Patrick Division Final. It would be a night of hockey history, thanks to "Le Magnifique":

At 2:15 of the first period, Lemieux snuck behind the Philly D, deked Ron Hextall with the slightest of fakes and backhanded the puck into an empty net to make it 1-0. Ninety seconds later, standing completely unmolested at the side of the Flyer net, Mario took a Bob Errey pass and directed it home for a 2-0 Pens lead. Just before the seven-minute mark, Lemieux again gained a step on the suddenly slothful Flyers’ defense and, fading to his right side, rifled a pinpoint wrist shot to the far side of Hextall’s net, beating him cleanly.

The Igloo exploded in joy. Lemieux had clearly taken his game to another level and the Flyers seemed helpless to stop him. After Errey made it 4-0 only 12 seconds after Lemieux’s hat trick goal and ex-Pen Mike Bullard answered back for the Flyers, Mario scored his craftiest goal on the night. Seeing Hextall venture behind his net for a loose puck, Lemieux swooped in and, with his long reach, stick-checked the big goalie, took the puck around the net and swept it into the open cage.

Lemieux would add three assists and an empty-net goal to tie the NHL single-game playoff records for goals with five and points with eight, leading the Pens to a 10-7 win. He also tied a few single-period NHL post-season records: most goals (four), most points (four), and assists (three). His final goal also set a new Penguin mark for career playoff goals at 10, one more than Jean Pronovost. Incredibly, it had taken Lemieux less than two playoff rounds to accomplish the feat!

“He elevated his game to the point where he just showed everybody else how much better than us he can be,” observed Tom Barrasso.

Even the Flyers were in awe of the display.

“I’ve never seen an individual performance like that,” said coach Paul Holmgren. “We just got in front of that snowball with the Number 66 on it early, and when he gets rolling, it’s a scary thing.”

Excerpted from The Pittsburgh Penguins: The First 25 Years by Greg Enright, available at http://bit.ly/2OGZeYO or https://amzn.to/3cna4N4 

Pens score fastest 5 goals in NHL history

The good times kept rolling for the Penguins on November 22, 1972 when, playing at home against the St. Louis Blues, they set an NHL record that still stands to this day. 

The game was a typically close battle between the bitter expansion rivals for the first two periods, with the Pens holding a 5-4 lead with a little over eight minutes to go. Bryan Hextall widened the lead by tipping in a Jack Lynch slap shot at 12:00. Jean Pronovost then took a feed from Greg Polis 12 seconds later and buried it past Blues goalie Wayne Stephenson. Al McDonough completed a hat trick at 13:40 off a pass from Syl Apps to make it a rout at 8-4. 

The crowd of 12,405 had barely started celebrating that marker when Ken Schinkel lit the lamp only nine seconds later. The shell-shocked Blues could not pull themselves together enough to stop Schock from adding a tenth goal only 18 seconds later.

The traditionally goal-starved Penguins had scored five goals in only two minutes and seven seconds, easily obliterating the previous mark for fastest five goals by one team of three minutes, forty-six seconds set by the Rangers in 1942. The fourth and fifth of those Penguin goals, only nine seconds apart, set a new team record for fastest two goals, and the overall tally of 10, in a 10-4 win, marked the first time the Pens had gone into double figures.

“Our guys were driving,” observed GM Jack Riley. “They seemed to have an obsession like Rocket Richard used to have to get down toward the goal and to get a shot. Everything seemed to be going our way.”

Excerpted from The Pittsburgh Penguins: The First 25 Years by Greg Enright, available at http://bit.ly/2OGZeYO or https://amzn.to/3cna4N4 

Penguins play last game in blue against black & gold Bruins - Jan. 27 1980

The Penguins' last game wearing blue uniforms as their primary color scheme took place on January 27, 1980 in Boston against the Bruins. Since entering the NHL in 1967, the Pens had worn various combinations of dark blue, baby blue and white. But thanks to the success of the black-and-gold-clad Steelers and Pirates, champions in football and baseball, respectively, Penguin ownership decided it was time the Pens followed suit.

“Our fans practically demand it,” team vice-president Paul Martha told a local newspaper. “Anything we can do to make going to a hockey game more entertaining, we’ll try.”

The idea took definite shape when the Penguins sent formal notice to the league in January 1980. The NHL quickly approved the move, but the sartorial switch hit a snag when the Bruins protested, claiming they had sole NHL rights to the black and gold colors. 

The hissy fit from the Hub was doomed to failure, though, what with no legal basis to support it. NHL President John Ziegler formally denied the challenge when he ruled that the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Steel City's first NHL team that played from 1925 to 1930, had worn black and gold eight years before the Bruins switched to the scheme in 1933.

So it was with some irony that the Pens played their final game in blue against the team that had opposed their move to black and gold. What's even more incredible is that the Penguins came out of the Boston Garden victorious - a feat they had accomplished only three other times in their entire existence (3-27-2). Center Greg Malone led the way with two goals and an assist. The win snapped a five-game losing streak.

"Things weren't going too good for us," Gregg Sheppard told the Boston Globe. "So we were trying anything. Maybe we took more chances."

Three nights later, the Penguins wore black and gold for the first time at home against the St. Louis Blues. The jerseys had just arrived from the place the Penguins had ordered them from - where else? - the  Bruins Pro Shop in Boston Garden.

Follow me on Twitter: @penguinshistory and @NHLNewsArchive.

 

The Penguins of Christmas past

In the early days of the Penguins franchise, the team often played games on Christmas Day. Unlike today’s NHLers who enjoy a nice three-day break, players back in the day had to work on December 25^th. In the late sixties and early seventies, team owners still called the majority of the shots and if they wanted their products on the ice on December 25 there was no players union powerful enough to say different.

The Pens played four Christmas games in their first five years – and did quite well. Here’s a recap of their holiday hockey playing:

Jean Pronovost chases Gordie Howe,
Christmas Day 1968.

• In the Penguins’ first season, 1967-68, they met the Los Angeles Kings at the Civic Arena and came out on top 4-3 thanks to a pair of goals each from Andy Bathgate and Gene Ubriaco. It was their first win in five tries against their expansion brethren from Southern California.
• The following year, before the smallest home crowd to that date to see a Pens game (2,420), the home team stormed back from a 3-1 deficit to beat Gordie Howe and the Red Wings 6-3. Keith McCreary was the hero, scoring both the tying and winning goals.
• Two years later, the Penguins ran into the most powerful line in hockey when they visited Boston Garden. Wayne Cashman, Phil Esposito and Ken Hodge accounted for four goals en route to an 8-4 pasting of the Pens. Esposito alone had 13 shots. “That’s more shots than my whole team gets sometimes,” quipped Pittsburgh coach Red Kelly afterward. The Penguins did exact some revenge the next night when they beat the Bruins 4-2 back at the Igloo.
• In 1971, with the Pens struggling through an eight-game winless streak, the high-flying Montreal Canadiens came to town. Mercifully for the Penguins, the Habs opted to start backup goalie Denis DeJordy over Ken Dryden. Pittsburgh burned him for four goals and the Penguins had their first win since December 4, coming out on top 4-2.

That day marked the end of Christmas hockey in the NHL. The league stopped the practice, and a year later phased out Christmas Eve games as well. The Penguins finished with a 3-1 mark, including two wins against established teams – not too bad for a fledgling expansion club.

The three biggest keys to the Penguins winning the Stanley Cup

There are a number of big things that should ideally happen if the Pens are to drink from Lord Stanley’s mug this spring, like the power play consistently clicking, Crosby and  Malkin scoring more, avoiding dumb penalties and getting a bit more luck than their opponents. But if they take care of the main three below, these other ones should eventually fall into place, and we could very well see another Cup coming to Pittsburgh as a result.

Ferocious Forecheck: Coming in with speed and power will get you the puck more often than not and a key to the Pens' success all spring has been their ability to do this consistently. The Crosbys, Kessels and Malkins will bury enough of the pucks they get. Keep getting them the pucks and the goals will come. Do not let up. 

No Matt Mulligans: Matt Murray must keep playing his technically sound, even-keeled game. It's the only kind of goaltending that wins Stanley Cups. And the brutal reality is that we're at a point in the playoffs where Mulligans are not permitted. The reassuring thing here is that the Pens have a former Stanley Cup winner as a backup. 

No 'D'-fects: Some of the younger D-men like Olli Maata and Brian Dumoulin have to avoid sloppy clearances in their own zone that land on opponents' sticks. They haven't always succeeded at that in these playoffs. It is the single biggest cause for concern for the Penguins and their fans. Overall, though, they've played beyond their years, but they must play about a year older the rest of the way. Let Letang score from the back end. Let the superstars be super up front. Just get that puck out of your zone, boys - again and again.