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.

Paiement closes career as a Penguin

Wilf Paiement was the second overall pick in the 1974 NHL Entry Draft, taken by the expansion Kansas City Scouts. The 6'4", 210-pound right winger was supposed to be the Scouts' version of Buffalo's Gilbert Perreault, a young superstar around whom the franchise could build.

The Scouts, however, had little else in the way of talent and could barely win a handful of games. After two dismal years in K.C. the team moved to Colorado to become the Rockies, and Paiement went along with them. The scenery changed but the losing continued. Paiement put up some impressive numbers nonetheless, tallying 40 goals in 1976-77 and 87 points the following year. In 1979 he was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the infamous deal for Lanny McDonald, and two years later he went to the Quebec Nordiques.

After one-season stops in New York with the Rangers and Buffalo, Paiement's hockey road wound its way to the Penguins, where he was penciled in as Mario Lemieux's right winger on the Pens' top line to start the 1987-88 campaign.

Paiement got off to a solid start, scoring a goal in each of the team's first two games, but after that it was all downhill. He was demoted to the Penguins' farm team in Muskegon in mid-November - his first ever stint in the minors.

"After we took him off the power play he seemed to stop working," said Pens GM Eddie Johnston at the time. "He definitely hasn't played up to expectations."

Paiement did return for six more games in January but with a nagging knee injury and little production (1 assist in those six games) the writing was on the wall. Wilf Paiement played his final NHL game January 10, 1988 wearing a Penguins uniform - a 7-5 loss to the Red Wings in Detroit.

Kevin McCarthy, Pens point man

Kevin McCarthy was a high-scoring NHL defenceman of the late 70s and early 80s who began and ended his career with the Philadelphia Flyers, playing for Vancouver and Pittsburgh in between. Drafted 17^th overall in the 1977 amateur draft, McCarthy had an impressive rookie season in 77-78, putting up 17 points in 62 games, while enjoying a plus-29 rating.  

After 22 games and only three points the next year, however, the Flyers gave up on him and shipped him to Vancouver. 

He proved the Flyers wrong. 

Seasons of 45, 53, 45 and 40 points followed. Unfortunately, he broke his ankle just before the Canucks began their memorable run to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1982, missing the entire playoffs and watching his team eventually lose to the New York Islanders. 

McCarthy came to the Penguins smack dab in the middle of their worst season ever, traded in January 1984 for a third-round pick in that year’s draft. He hadn't been playing much in Vancouver and welcomed a fresh start in Pittsburgh.  "I'm glad to be with someone who wants me," he said when traded. "It could be a blessing in disguise because (Pens GM) Eddie Johnston said I'd be getting a lot of ice time."

McCarthy proved to be a rare bright spot for the Pens that year, racking up 20 points in 31 games. Typical of most 1983-84 Penguin defencemen, though, he also posted a hideous minus-32 while wearing the black and gold that year. 

McCarthy was back the following season to be a part of Mario Lemieux’s rookie campaign, but the following summer his career went full circle when he was signed by the Flyers as a free agent. After six more games over the next two years, McCarthy’s NHL career was over. 

Since hanging up his skates, McCarthy has enjoyed a successful coaching career, getting his name on the Stanley Cup as an assistant with the 2006 champion Carolina Hurricanes. He is currently an assistant coach with the Nashville Predators.

Penguins first win, October 13, 1967

The Penguins notched their first-ever win in their second-ever game, October 13, 1967. Former Pittsburgh Hornet Art Stratton netted the winner in a 3-1 win against the Blues in St. Louis. Stratton gathered in a rebound off a Keith McCreary shot and flipped it over goalie Seth Martin.

Read the game report from the following day.

Behind the scenes at the 1984 draft

Yesterday marked the 30th anniversary of the Penguins choosing Mario Lemieux first overall in the 1984 Entry Draft. This piece from the Pittsburgh Press appearing on draft day details the Penguins' escalating contract offer to the still-unsigned Lemieux.

It was painful for Pens fans to see their new saviour
not donning the skating Penguin at the 1984 draft.
How much more humiliation could we take?!?

Even better is this lengthy look into the intrigue that surrounded Pens GM Eddie Johnston in the days leading up to the draft. The writer goes behind the scenes into the Montreal hotel rooms and onto the draft day floor at the Forum and reminds us of some of the near-trades that almost took place before and after Johnston called Mario's name (and sat there waiting in vain for a visit from the future superstar). Believe it or not, the Pens came within an extra throw-in player of acquiring future Capitals nemesis Dale Hunter.

Schultz hammers Wings in his Pens debut

Dave Schultz makes his Penguins debut and wastes no time living up to his nickname of "The Hammer", taking six penalties, including a fighting major in the second period. The tough tactics, however, don't change things where it matters - on the scoreboard - and the Pens go down to their third consecutive defeat of the young 1977-78 season, 3-1 to the Red Wings in Detroit.

Savill lays down the Hammer

Our look at the Pens' 1977-78 season continues...

The two early-season embarrassments the Penguins suffered at the hands of the Philadelphia Flyers (8-2 at home October 15 followed by an 11-0 lambasting five nights later at the Spectrum) did not sit well with Penguins Chairman of the Board Al Savill. One third of the team's ownership group, a frustrated Savill impulsively decided to toughen the Pens up by engineering a trade for the poster boy of '70s goon hockey, Dave "The Hammer" Schultz.

By this point, Schultz's days as the Broad Street Bullies' head haymaker were far behind him, having been dealt by the Flyers to the L.A. Kings in September 1976 before coming to Pittsburgh. The trade that brought him to the Pens saw the popular Syl Apps Jr. along with Hartland Monahan going west in exchange for Schultz, speedy forward Gene Carr and a draft pick.

Read the report of the trade that appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, containing Savill's rationale for the trade.

PP Problems, October 1977

Coach Johnny Wilson discusses how the Pens haven't been creative enough on the power play. See the report from the Pittsburgh Press.

Andy Brown, the last "Maskless Man"

Andy Brown makes a nice pad save.

On November 1, 1959, Jacques Plante first wore his famous goalie mask and ushered in the era of regular use of protective facial equipment for netminders. But the transition didn't happen overnight. It would take another 15 years before all goalies saw the merits of protecting their mugs from flying pieces of hard rubber coming at them each night.

In an interesting piece of trivia, it just so happens that the final member of the old guard was a guardian of the Penguins cage - Andy Brown. Acquired from the Red Wings in February 1973, Brown would play 45 games in a Pittsburgh uniform before moving to the WHA following the 1973-74 season.

Fourteen years less a day after Plante made history, the Penguins came to Montreal and left with a 1-1 tie behind Brown's solid performance. This story from the Montreal Gazette the following day features some nice action shots of Brown stopping Hall of Famer Henri Richard on a breakaway (along with some funny verbal swipes between the two after the game). And this report from the Pittsburgh Press includes another nice shot of the Last Maskless Man in action.

Stan Gilbertson

Just prior to the start of the 77-78 season, Penguins left winger Stan Gilbertson was involved in a horrific car crash that forced the amputation of part of his right leg. This article acts as a fine tribute to a player who had a great sense of humour and tons of heart. And this piece on Gilbertson over at Greatest Hockey Legends describes what happened in the years after the accident.

Cap carnage in 1975

As the Pens and Caps gear up for the Winter Classic, let's look back on one of the first battles between these rivals: March 15, 1975. The high-powered Pens put a licking on the expansion Capitals that night at the Igloo, firing 65 shots at the hapless Cap 'keepers en route to a 12-1 demolition.

This Post-Gazette article recaps the carnage, as well as another thrashing doled out the following night to the Kansas City Scouts, another expansion "sacrifice", as writer Bob Whitley described them. There's a nice pic of the KC goalie being beaten by Ron Schock, too.

And here's a report on the weekend goal-fest from the Beaver County Times, with comments from Rick Kehoe about his recent split with the Maple Leafs which brought him to Pittsburgh to begin a long relationship with the team.

There's also another nice pic from the Kansas City game, but why the paper's editors chose to display one of the Pens getting scored on during a weekend in which they scored 18 goals is beyond me!

Aside: 10 Greatest Games video

Let's be clear: the 10 games chosen for the DVD package, Pittsburgh Penguins Greatest Games, are NOT the best in franchise history. Perhaps they're the best of the games that were captured with presentable audio and video, but not of the whole franchise.

I got to thinking recently about what games should truly be on there if the techincal end of things was not a factor. Here are a few:

- Pens defeat Oakland in Game Four of 1970 playoff series on Michele Briere's OT goal, giving Pittsburgh its first-ever playoff series win
- George Ferguson scores series-clinching OT goal vs. Buffalo in 1979 playoffs
- Pens OT victory over Montreal in April 1993 to set new NHL record for longest winning streak
- Game 4 of 1982 preliminary round vs. Islanders in which surprising Pens force defending Stanley Cup champs to the brink of elimination
- 12-0 win vs. Washington in 1976, Pens' biggest margin of victory
- Penguins first win

Any others?

Game 5: No 'Miracle on Ice' for 1980 Pens

It looked like Game 4 all over again. And that was unfortunate for the Pens, whose dream of upsetting one of the NHL's top teams in the first round of the 1980 playoffs turned into a Boston Garden nightmare.

The Bruins, perhaps stung by these pesky Penguins taking them to the brink of elimination, once again roared out of the gate and took control of the game, amassing leads of 2-0 after 1 and 4-0 after 2. This article from the Post-Gazette the day after focuses on goalie Greg Millen's surprisingly positive reaction to the loss. The column beneath it by the paper's sports editor speculates on coach Johnny Wilson's future in Pittsburgh, which wouldn't be bright - he was soon fired, making way for none other than Eddie Johnston.

The two pieces on this page of the Beaver County Times offer the views of two fans who were chosen to write columns for the paper.

And this article from the Eugene Register-Guard nicely outlines the impact rookie Ray Bourque had on the series.

This loss would represent the first of three heartbreaking, deciding Game 5 losses the Pens would endure over the next three seasons.

Lemieux debut

Believe it or not, Penguins' season ticket sales fell during the summer after they drafted Mario Lemieux (1984), as this short piece from the Montreal Gazette relates. The article also reveals that 66's first game in Pittsburgh was in danger of not selling out. It's funny reading the comments of then-Pens PR man Paul Steigerwald, now the team's TV play-by-play voice, about the situation, basically heaping the blame on the visiting Canucks. It's doubtful that in today's tight-lipped, spic-and-span world of hockey PR you'd hear such bluntness. Would be nice, though.

Simmer wins it at the Forum

In their first 20 seasons, the Penguins managed to win a grand total of 2 games at the Montreal Forum. No, that isn't a misprint: 2 wins. But in January 1988, the Penguins managed to pull out their third victory at the hallowed hall of hockey when Charlie Simmer banged in a Mario Lemieux rebound at the side of the Canadiens' cage in overtime for a 4-3 win. Here's a wrap-up of that game from a Toledo newspaper. Goalie Frank Pietrangelo was spectacular, making 40-plus saves.

I remember that OT goal like it was yesterday because I watched the whole game on Hockey Night in Canada with my brother, a Habs fan. Winning in Montreal signified a bit of a turning point to me; Pittsburgh now had Mario and Paul Coffey, recently arrived from Edmonton, and some other up-and-coming prospects. It seemed that good times were finally ahead, and despite missing the playoffs again that year (the sixth season in row), those good times certainly weren't far off...

Where it all began

This is a short report on the Penguins' first-ever game, a 2-1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens on Oct. 11, 1967. Unfortunately, the Post-Gazette's issue from the following day hasn't shown up on Google News yet, but as soon as it does I'll post a link.

Despite the loss, the Pens acquitted themselves quite well against the mighty Montrealers. It seemed to all present that good days were ahead for the team, and with a lot of veteran guys in the lineup, there was every reason to believe that Pittsburgh would be one of the better 'New 6' squads. Alas, the type of optimism on display in Habs' coach Toe Blake's quote in this article was misplaced. The Pens finished 5th of 6th in the new West (Expansion) Division, out of the playoffs.

Here's a great video with original Pens' GM Jack Riley discussing the first game and featuring some clips of the early days. Look how natilly attired the crowds were back then!

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.

Michel Briere and Co. battle the Leafs, 1969

I had the pleasure of watching a game between the Penguins and Maple Leafs from Dec. 6, 1969, which was aired here in the Toronto area on Leafs TV. It was easily the oldest game I had ever seen the Pens play, and was a great glimpse into what the team was like in these early expansion years of the franchise. The only negative was that the good guys got trounced, 5-0!

Read the pre-game article that appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on the day of the game.

Despite some impressive goaltending from Al Smith, the Penguins found themselves in a 2-0 hole after one, thanks to some slow-footed defence play that allowed the Leafs to break in on a number of odd-man rushes. As noted by the legendary Foster Hewitt after the game, one of the strongest performances from the Penguins was turned in by rookie Michel Briere. It was easy to see why Pittsburgh hockey fans were excited about the future of this potential star player - he was often whizzing around the ice and seemed to be in the middle of most of the team's scoring chances. Playing with Jean Pronovost on his right side didn't hurt his game either.

Despite the result, this DVD will sit proudly amongst my collection, seeing as how rare a chance it was to see Briere playing in his lone NHL season, before his car accident in May 1970 and his death the following year after being in a coma.

This game was the first of a home-and-home weekend series against the Leafs. Apparently the loss didn't sit well with the young Briere - he tallied two goals the next night in Pittsburgh, the difference in a 3-2 Penguin triumph. Here's the report on that game from the Post-Gazette.

A bit about this blog...

Thanks to Google’s News Archive application, a huge volume of back issues from newspapers all over the world is now available on your very own computer screen. For a guy like me with a fondness for both history and newspapers, this has been an exciting development. The process of getting to this information in the past used to be laborious, to say the least.

My own experience involved, first, trudging down to one of the few libraries that had old issues of a limited number of papers. I’d then have to request what issues (on microfiche) I wanted to view from the librarian and, once secured, load them into a creaking microfiche viewer and begin cranking its old leaver around to get to the pages I wanted to see. I’d use the few inches of space in my cubicle not taken up by the monstrosity to scribble down what notes I had to make.

I did this primarily while researching two articles I wrote in the early ’90s, one on the old Pittsburgh Pirates hockey club of the ’20s and another on the team they became, the Philadelphia Quakers. Don’t get me wrong – looking at all those old articles and ads from years ago was a lot of fun. And the bottom line was, with widespread availability of the Internet still a few years away, there was at that time no other way to see the material. If a dog has a small bone and doesn’t know there’s a bigger one over the fence, he’s not upset – just content with what he has. And so was I.

But now, with these archives available to me in the comfort of my own home, accessible on my schedule and not the library’s, I can’t help but look back on those days and marvel at how arcane both the technology and the process were.

Things, of course, still aren’t perfect. More archived newspaper content is coming online, thanks in large part to Google’s efforts to digitize as much of it as they can. And many big papers have been bringing their old content online, but a large number of them still require a fee to view it.

Some papers, though, seem to have welcomed the Google initiative with open arms and have made their back issues available through Google for no charge. By a huge stroke of good luck, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is one of them. That basically means I’m now able to start this blog and highlight all the great jewels of Penguins historical information that previously sat locked away in microfiche archives in the ‘Burgh.

I hope everyone enjoys the stuff I link to here. Feel free to let me know your thoughts either by e-mail or through the commenting function at the bottom of each post. I’d love to hear your memories of Penguins hockey!

- Greg

Pens-Caps - The game that started it all

The Penguins will begin their eighth playoff series against the Washington Capitals on Saturday. With a Sidney Crosby-Alex Ovechkin battle on the menu, the series will no doubt add another memorable chapter to what has turned into a long and heated rivalry over the years.

Where did it all start, you ask?

The teams first met on November 16, 1974 at the Civic Arena, during the Caps' inaugural season. The dreadful D.C.ers came in with only one win in 16 contests and would be going up against a Pens team that was starting to develop into a potent offensive force, thanks in large part to the play of rookie Pierre Larouche. In this preview article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette the day of the game, we learn that it's Larouche's 19th birthday and that he seems a little worried about how his teammates might help him celebrate.

Have a look at the "Civic Arena Rosters" and see if you recognize any of the players in the Caps column. No? Well, don't be ashamed. This was certainly a collection of nobodys, save perhaps for goalie Ron Low, who enjoyed a long playing career and went on to become an NHL head coach. And if you're a Caps fan, you'll know #7 Yvon Labre, the first Washington player to have his number retired.

The Pens, by the way, would rout the Capitals, 8-1.