1991 Patrick Final Game 4: Pens 3, Caps 1

Through the first five months of the Penguins’ 1990-91 regular season, the “Option Line” of John Cullen, Kevin Stevens and Mark Recchi provided a huge offensive spark that helped the team win its first division championship. The line had clearly clicked, but when Cullen was traded to the Hartford Whalers in March, it had lost its centreman.

 

Fortunately for the Penguins, they had a pretty fair replacement as they finished the season and moved into the playoffs: a guy named Mario Lemieux.

 

The Pens superstar captain returned at the end of January after sitting out the entire season to that point with back problems. After the Hartford trade, Number 66 frequently moved into the spot vacated by Cullen, often with magical results.

 

Case in point: Game 4 of the Patrick Division Final against the Washington Capitals, in which the three linemates combined for seven points in a 3-1 victory that gave the Pens a 3-1 stranglehold on the series.

 

Tom Barrasso turned in a superlative performance, stopping 38 of the 39 Capital shots. Washington outshot the Pens overall, 39-19.

 

“Barrasso played extremely well. He was the difference,” said Caps defenseman Rod Langway. “They kept the puck on the outside and let Barrasso see it.”

1991 Patrick Final Game 3: Pens 3, Caps 1

With three of their regular defensemen out of the lineup – Paul Coffey with a broken jaw, Ulf Samuelsson with a broken hand and away in Sweden to visit his ailing father, and Peter Taglianetti hobbled with a bruised ankle – the Penguins turned to a trio of backup blueliners to hold down the fort. 

Gordie Roberts, Paul Stanton and Jim Paek, making his career playoff debut, played a simple yet solid game and allowed the club to come out with a 3-1 win and a 2-1 lead in their Patrick Division Final series against the Washington Capitals. 

Tom Barrasso returned to the Penguin net, and goals from Mario Lemieux, Kevin Stevens and Bryan Trottier gave Pittsburgh a well-earned playoff road victory.

“Losing three players like that, we needed good goaltending and we needed good backchecking. I think the team rallied around that,” said coach Bob Johnson.

1991 Patrick Final, Game 1: Caps 4, Pens 2

Mario Lemieux and Ulf Samuelsson return to the lineup but it isn’t enough to stop the hard-working Capitals from grabbing a 1-0 series lead and home ice advantage.

“I thought momentum from [the Game 7 win over New Jersey] would carry over,” said a disappointed coach Bob Johnson, “but they’re a well-rested team and they won a lot of loose pucks.”

The Capitals had knocked off the New York Rangers in six games to reach the Patrick Division Final, overcoming a 2-1 deficit.

The Pens led 2-1 heading into the third but allowed Kevin Hatcher to tie it 1:37 and another defenseman, Al Iafrate, to pot the winner at 15:31. An empty-netter sealed it.

“They outworked us. They wanted it more than us,” said winger Bob Errey.

(Interesting piece of Pens trivia: the official scorer for the game was Bernie Boileau, brother of former Penguins coach Marc Boileau. He was part of the Montreal off-ice officiating crew that was working the game.)

Caps coach: Pens not physical

You’d think the last worry a team with Dave “The Hammer” Schultz on it would have was being tough enough, but that is exactly what troubled the Penguins as they began 1978. This article breaks down the Pens’ lack of grit, with some harsh words from Washington Capitals coach  Tommy McVie, who years later would later battle the Penguins again as coach of the New Jersey Devils.

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!

Pens trailed 2-0 in 1991 - and won!

The Pens return to the Igloo down 2-0 to the Washington Capitals tonight. They lost two close games in which it would be patently wrong to say they were outplayed to any large degree. In fact, these young Pittsburghers come home filled with as much optimism about their chances as any team down 2-0 ever has.

The situation is quite similar to that of the 1991 Pens, who came back to the Civic Arena down 2-0 to the Boston Bruins in their Wales Conference Final series. Despite the losses, including a hard-fought overtime affair in Game 2, the Penguins felt they had been anything but dominated by the Bruins and liked their chances quite well, thank you very much. In fact, winger Kevin Stevens predicted they would come back and win the series...which they did, rhyming off four straight victories and moving on to their first Stanley Cup Final appearance.

This article from the May 5, 1991 New York Times presents a nice summary of the management changes in Pittsburgh that started the ball rolling on the team's resurgence, as well as a nice quote from coach Badger Bob Johnson about some whistle-happy referees in Game 2.

And for all of us Pens fans hoping for a turnaround in 2009 like we saw in '91, check out this small piece in the May 14, 1991 Post-Gazette about one of the many nice things that can happen when your team wins!

Caps beat Pens - for the first time

The Capitals grabbed a 1-0 series lead this afternoon by beating the Penguins 3-2. Thirty-four years (and a couple of weeks) ago, the Caps claimed their first victory against Pittsburgh: an 8-4 romp on the last day of Washington's inaugural season, 1974-75. The triumph put a positive period on a truly miserable season for the young Capitals, representing one of only eight (that's right - eight) wins they earned all year. Thier 0.131 winning percentage was the worst ever recorded by an NHL team, besting the previous most pathetic mark of 0.136, set by the sad-sack Philadelphia Quakers in 1930-31.

As this article from the April 7, 1975 Post-Gazette says, the Penguins were done in by some shaky goaltending and perhaps by looking ahead to the upcoming playoffs.