Pens celebrate New Year's Eve 1969 by beating Habs

The Penguins rang in 1970 with a bang, knocking off the Stanley Cup Champion Montreal Canadiens 4-2 at the Igloo on New Year's Eve, 1969. Led by Keith McCreary's pair of goals, the Pens won for only the second time against the Canadiens in their then short history. It was, in fact, perhaps the Penguins finest performance of the season, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Jimmy Jordan in this game recap (the article (along with a fairly grainy picture) is on the next page).

"They played together as a unit, skated their own lanes and, in general provided the style of play Coach Red Kelly had insisted they were capable of since the start of the season," Jordan wrote.

You can also see the Montreal Gazette's take on the game here, which featured a clearer picture of McCreary scoring on Rogie Vachon (scroll to the left for the article.)

Unfortunately, only 5,202 fans turned up to see the Penguins fine effort. Guess there were some good parties happening elsewhere around Pittsburgh that night.

Brotherly battles

Here's another article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette following the Pens first semi-final series in 1970, which they lost to the Blues in six games. The attitude seemed pretty upbeat despite the loss, with the sellout Igloo crowd (the rink only held 12,403 at that time) giving the team a rousing thank you. The future of coach Red Kelly as Penguins coach seemed to be in doubt, with other teams knocking at his door. The rumour of him going to Toronto would eventually come true, but not until 1973, after he was fired by the Penguins.

Also mentioned later in the article is the Blues' Bill McCreary, who, just like Eric Staal today, was facing off against his Penguin-uniform-wearing brother in a semi-final series. Bill faced Keith while Eric is, of course, battling with Jordan.