Patric Hornqvist scores the Cup-winning goal Sunday night. There's absolutely no truth to the rumor that officials are changing the spelling of the city to "Pittsbvrgh."
It’s a spring day in 1975. I’m 8 years old. My father, brother and I are sitting in my cousin’s family room, listening to Game 7 of the Pittsburgh Penguins/New York Islanders quarterfinal series. Our Pens had blown a three-games-to-none lead, but certainly they’d pull it out at home in Game 7, right?
In the ‘70s in Pittsburgh, the Steelers were the kings. After decades of futility, they had emerged as one of the all-time great teams and would win four Super Bowls before the decade ended. The Pirates weren’t far behind, fielding awesome teams each year of that decade en route to capturing two World Series titles.
The Pens? Yeah, they were the fourth-most-popular team in a three-team town, but, as much as I love our Stillers and Buccos, the Pens have always had a special hold on my heart, maybe because they were seen as the misfits, the outsiders. I could relate.
The best player of his generation hoists the Cup for a third time.
The Penguins joined the NHL in 1967, along with five other teams. The ’74-’75 club was the best they had assembled to that point. It was a talented squad that would feature nine players who would net at least 20 goals. One of those nine was a talented rookie named Pierre Larouche. My Christmas present in 1975 was a “Lucky” Pierre Penguins jersey, but more about that in due time.
In the first round in the ’75 playoffs, the Pens swept by the Blues and were coasting against a young Islanders team. Could the Penguins be joining the Steelers and Pirates as champions? Well, no — not yet, anyway. An Islander by the name of Ed Westfall would break a 0-0 tie with about 5 minutes left in the game. It turned out to be the game’s lone goal. We were heartbroken. Within a few years, that Islander team would become one of the NHL’s greatest dynasties, winning four straight Cups. My Pens, meanwhile, would stumble, declaring bankruptcy and coming very close to leaving Pittsburgh.
Because of money problems, the Penguins couldn’t afford to keep Larouche and traded him to Montreal. When my brother told me the news, I figured he was teasing me. I mean, come on. Why on Earth would they trade Larouche? I was young. I didn’t understand yet that sports was a business.
For the rest of the ‘70s and into the early ‘80s, the Pens made the playoffs even though they didn’t always have good teams. The NHL back then had a very generous playoff system, and for three years in the early ‘80s, the team took superior clubs to the brink, only to break my heart again and again.
At the time, I was in middle school, awkward as hell — bad clothes, bad complexion, desperately in search of a fast-forward button to my life. I would get through most days by telling myself, “Hey, there’s a Pens game on tonight.” And the Pens would, more times than not, lose, which only added to my frustration. But I never gave up hope that better days were ahead for the team — and for myself.
In 1982, the Pens faced the Islanders again in the playoffs. The Islanders were back-to-back defending champs, and it showed in the first two games, as the Isles thumped the Pens 8-1 and 7-2. Inexplicably, I still had hope. Even more inexplicably, the Pens won the next two games and forced a deciding fifth game back in Nassau County.
In Game 5, the Pens had a 3-1 lead with about 5 minutes left. My dad and I couldn’t believe it. The Pens were going to defeat the mighty Islanders? No, they weren’t. The final five minutes and subsequent overtime played out like a slow-motion train wreck that we were powerless to stop. 3-2. 3-3. And, finally, 4-3, thanks to a John “Bastard” Tonelli goal in overtime. Yeah, “Bastard” is probably not his actual nickname. The Isles would go on to win the Cup that year. And my Pens? They would subsequently become the worst team in the league, which was the best thing that ever happened to the organ-eye-zation.
Why? Because with the first pick in the 1984 draft, the Pens selected Mario Lemieux. Within seven years of his arrival, the team went from a joke to respectability to champion-caliber to, finally, champions in 1991 and 1992. Of course, this is a team sport, and Lemieux, as awesome as he was, didn’t do it alone. Barrasso and Stevens and Francis and “Ulfie” and Recchi and the apparently ageless Jagr and so many others will be remembered fondly by Penguin fans forever.
And that Larouche jersey I had as a kid? Well, I was, let’s say, a husky child, and, though it was short in the arms, it still fit me when I put it on the night the Pens won their first Cup. I also put it on the night the team won its second Cup, the following year. In 2009, when the Pens won again, not only did I wear the jersey, but so did my then-8-year-old son. I can no longer put it on, however, because my brother met Larouche a few years ago and asked him if he would autograph the jersey, which he graciously did. The jersey is now encased in glass and sits in my office. It never fails to make me smile.
The ‘90s were a great decade for Pittsburgh — a couple Stanley Cups and playoff appearances every year. It couldn’t last forever, of course, and as the team entered a new century, it found itself in a familiar, if undesirable, place: the cellar.
But, as they say, timing is everything, and the Pens were horrible at just the right moment. This time, they reloaded with Marc-Andre Fleury, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, Jordan Staal, and the best player of his generation, Sidney Crosby. This would be the nucleus of the team that would return to the Cup finals in 2008, only to fall short to a terrific Detroit Red Wings team. But in 2009, facing that same Red Wings squad, the Pens would emerge victorious in a thrilling seven-game series that literally went down to the final shot. (Thanks, Flower! Pens fans will love you forever for that save and for all the saves and wins and thrills you gave us in your glorious, Hall-of-Fame-worthy black-and-gold career).
When the Pens won in 2009, it seemed like they were poised to go on a run and maybe win a few more in short order. Key injuries, though, laid waste to those hopes, and while they made the playoffs every year from 2010 to 2015, they were never able to overcome the setbacks they faced, and they fell short repeatedly.
Things were going great for the team in 2016, though, and we fans were quietly confident that maybe this was the team that could get back into the finals and reclaim the Cup. Then, late in the season, those hopes were seemingly squashed when Fleury went down with an injury. His replacement? A 21-year-old rookie by the name of Matt Murray. We figured, “Oh, well, we’ll get them next year.” We figured incorrectly. Murray would lead the team for the rest of the regular season and through the playoffs, amazing us with his poise and helping the Pens hoist the Cup for the fourth time in team history.
And then this season, again, a late-season injury, this time to Letang, seemed to put to rest any hopes the team had of repeating as champions. And to further cloud the team’s chances, Murray went down with an injury right before Game 1 of the opening round. Not to worry, though, because Fleury stepped in and played remarkably well through the first two rounds, including a 2-0 shutout of the Washington Capitals on the road in Game 7 in the second round.
Capital fans — if it’s any consolation, your team was the best the Pens faced both this year and last year.
Murray returned in Round 3 and would lead the Pens the rest of the way, pitching his own 2-0 shutout in the clinching game against the Nashville Predators, a game that was so thrilling that, well, as longtime Pens announcer Mike Lange would say, “Shame on you for six weeks if you missed this one.”
Thanks, Pens, for 50 years of thrills and memories.
