Canuck keeper loses cool in Pens 1976 drubbing

Further to the last post about the Seals, here's another report from that Western road trip in February 1976, this time from Vancouver, detailing a 7-3 win against the Canucks. There's a great story about Gary "Suitcase" Smith, the Canuck keeper who some might have referred to as "Nutcase" for the type of strange behaviour described here.

Pens-Seals, 1976

Playing NHL 10 recently, I realized that one of the uniforms you can choose if playing the Dallas Stars is the California Golden Seals. It got me thinking of that old team, so I looked up some reports of their games against the Pens. The Seals did not last too long, coming in with the Penguins in 1967 and suffering through nine mostly dreadful seasons. The franchise was moved to Cleveland in 1976, lasting there only two seasons as the Barons before merging with the struggling Minnesota North Stars.

Here's a report on the Penguins' final visit to Oakland, which involved some last-minute heroics from Pens captain Ron Schock. The Penguins would win the final battle back in Pittsburgh the following month, to end with a 27-16-16 all-time record.

Blueline blues: 1974

We got the news today about Sergei Gonchar being out for 4-6 weeks - certainly a blow to the Pens, even if the team is playing spectacularly in the early going of this season. Thirty-five years ago, the Penguins were facing a similar situation on their blueline, with two regulars on the sidelines. Here's a P-G article describing the predicament. There's a good picture of a young Colin Campbell, now the NHL's head disciplinarian, who was brought up to fill in.

The main tidbit that really jumped out at me in this article, though, was the reference to a pre-season game the Penguins had played against the WHA's Cleveland Crusaders. I did not know that there was any kind of inter-league play between these two circuits, and perhaps illustrates that their leaders weren't quite at each others' throats as we might suspect.

Igloo's swan song = great reading

With the Penguins now into their final season at the Igloo, there are a lot of fine reads coming out on the history of the arena and Penguin memories. The P-G's Empty Netters blog is featuring some interviews with notable Pens from the past. Here's one with original GM Jack Riley.