Joe Mullen's class act comeback

Mario Lemieux had a few pretty impressive comebacks throughout his career, but another Penguin Hall of Famer had one of his own early in the 1991 Stanley Cup playoffs.

Joe Mullen was in his first season with the Pens in 1990-91, coming over in a trade for a second round pick with the Calgary Flames in the offseason. From the start, Mullen proceeded to do what he did best – score goals. He’d bagged 17 of them in the first 34 games, but a herniated disc in his neck halted his torrid pace and eventually sent him to the sidelines for surgery.

There was no guarantee he’d be back that season – or ever.

“There wasn’t a whole lot of players who came back from that, so I was very unsure if my career was over or not,” he said in an interview years later.

But come back he did, and in fine style. The Penguins headed into Game 3 of their first round series against the New Jersey Devils tied at one game apiece. With the game tied at two early in the third, Mullen rifled a slap shot past Chris Terreri, helping the Pens to a 4-3 win.

Mullen, who was fitted with a large white collar for additional protection, would light the lamp seven more times that spring and add nine assists as the Penguins made their run to their first Stanley Cup. Joe would score his 500^th career goal in a Pens uniform in 1997 and be inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2000.

Joe Mullen: a true gentleman who brought tons of class – and goals – to the Penguin organization.

“Other” Cam Newton tended goal for the Penguins

Cam Newton, Pittsburgh Penguin

The Penguins had their own Cam Newton back in the early 70s, and although he wasn’t a superstar in his sport like the Carolina Panther quarterback of the same name, he also wasn’t known for his poutiness after losing a big game.

And, being a Penguin netminder in the early 70s, he did lose a few.

Newton tended goal for the Toronto Marlboros in 1967 when they won the Memorial Cup, symbol of junior hockey supremacy in Canada. He was drafted by the Pens in 1970 and made his NHL debut on March 23, 1971.

Facing him that night was none other than Gordie Howe, then in his final season with the Detroit Red Wings. Newton kept Mr. Hockey off the scoresheet while his teammates exploded for eight goals, making his night a happy one. On the strength of a Duane Rupp hat trick, the Pens halted an eight-game winless streak with an 8-2 rout.

Newton had a shutout going until, with less than five minutes to go, he got tangled up with a teammate and left his net wide open, into which Detroit’s Tom Webster depositing the rubber. “Things were going my way and I got a little anxious,” he said about the play after the game, adding somewhat cockily, “Don’t forget, I haven’t been around this league for 25 years.”

Newton would play here and there for the Pens the rest of the year and the following season, usually getting the call from the minors to fill in when starters Les Binkley or Jim Rutherford were hurt. His performances were often more shaky than Penguin management would have liked. In his first game of the 1971-72 season in Los Angeles, he gave up four first-period goals in a six and-a-half minute stretch, sinking the Pens' hopes and sending them to a 5-2 loss.

The rival World Hockey Association was snapping up NHL players at the time and Newton made the jump before the 1973-74 season, signing with the Chicago Cougars. He retired from pro hockey in 1977.

Since then, it seems Cam Newton has all but disappeared. Toronto hockey writer Howard Berger recently tried to track him down but no one knew where he was. Read Howard’s fascinating account of his elusive search for the “other” Cam Newton – Pittsburgh Penguin netminder.

Lemieux sets Pens single-season point mark, 1986

In only his second season, Mario Lemieux set a new Penguin mark for points in a season, scoring an incredible 141 and shattering the previous mark of 111 set by Pierre Larouche in 1975-76.

He pulled past "Lucky Pierre" on February 24, 1986 in a wild 6-5 comeback overtime win against the L.A. Kings at the Igloo. After a disastrous first period that saw them down 4-0 at the buzzer, the Pens stormed back to make it 4-3, with Mario collecting two assists. The first tied the record, the second broke it.

Rookie Craig Simpson must have been inspired by Mario's show. He came out and netted a pair in the third before the Kings' Joe Paterson tied it at five at 9:42. 

Things stayed scoreless the rest of the way until, with just over a minute left in overtime, Lemieux sent an innocent-looking pass in front of the Kings' net, which deflected off winger Doug Shedden's skate, sending the Igloo into delirium and sending Number 66 another point past Larouche's old mark, for good measure.

Mike Meeker

Mike Meeker, Pittsburgh Penguin

The Penguins’ penchant for trading away draft choices in the late 70s hit its nadir in 1978, when the team was left with only three picks. To make matters worse for the franchise, those three picks ended up being busts, playing in only a total of five NHL games.

Mike Meeker accounted for four of them. Things looked promising enough for the nephew of Maple Leafs legend Howie Meeker, the 1947 winner of the Calder Trophy for Rookie of the Year.

The Penguins drafted Meeker following an impressive 69-point junior year with the OHL's Peterborough Petes. Mike took home his own Rookie award in his first year of pro, when the right winger scored 65 points for the Binghamton Dusters of the American Hockey League.

That season, Meeker was called up to the Penguins for his four career NHL games, going pointless in them and earning five penalty minutes in a fight with the Flyers’ Rick MacLeish in his first game.

By early November of the next season, however, Meeker was put on the shelf for the remainder of the year with chronic back problems. That was it for Meeker in the NHL. He surfaced in Sweden for two years, scoring 52 points in 37 games for Karlskrona AIK.

This article details Meeker’s career in aquaculture in northern Ontario after his playing days came to an end.