Come on, Pens fans. The panic button is right over here, and you know you’re about to push it. Stanley Cup favorites? Cripes, their best home game so far was an intrasquad scrimmage. The consensus among the talk-radio-show-calling crowd is that Fleury should be traded, Malkin is a bum, and Bylsma will be gone by the end of February. But let’s all take a deep breath and look at the big picture – not this season, but this second golden era, which is starting to feel very familiar.
Think about the good fortunes of hockey fans in the Steel City. Two young superstars, in their prime. Both supremely talented, both making highlight-reel goals an every-night possibility. Different skill sets. One pushing the other to greater heights. The pair trading scoring titles like it’s been predetermined.
How could one city see this scenario twice in two generations? What was once Lemieux and Jagr is now Sid and Geno. That’s where this story begins. But this is not a debate about who the better pair was (that’s not even a real debate), or who scored the prettiest goals, or blah, blah, blah. This is about what happens when your team is a perpetual contender. The disappointments become magnified. As time goes on, the championship window inevitably inches toward the closed position.
There are some eerie similarities between the 1990s Penguins of Jagr and Lemieux and the 21st Century Penguins of Crosby and Malkin. They are mostly coincidental, and it’s fairly ridiculous to compare the two eras. The league today is totally different than it was a decade or two ago, with the cutoff point roughly being the 2004-2005 lockout. But if you’ll indulge, consider the following:
1991: Pens make the postseason for just second time in prior 8 seasons. It’s a very young team; most thought they weren’t ready to contend (Lemieux was 24, Jagr was 18). They make a stunning run through the playoffs, beating the Minnesota North Stars in six games to win their first Stanley Cup.
2008: Pens make the postseason for just the second time in prior 6 seasons. It’s a very young team; most thought they weren’t ready to contend (Crosby was 20, Malkin was 21). They make a stunning run through the Eastern Conference before losing in the Finals to the Red Wings, in six games.
1992: Tumultuous regular season. Beloved head coach Badger Bob Johnson is diagnosed with brain cancer in August and dies in November; he’s replaced by legendary Scotty Bowman. The team flounders in mid-season, winning only 5 games in January. In the playoffs, they roar back from a 3-1 hole against the Capitals before dispatching the Rangers, Bruins, and Blackhawks, winning a franchise-record 11 straight playoff games and successfully defending their championship.
2009: Tumultuous regular season. Mercurial head coach Michel Therrien is fired in mid-season, as the team loses five straight at the end of December and falls out of the playoff picture by January. He’s replaced by little-known Dan Bylsma, who guides them to the playoffs, where they roar back from a 2-0 hole against the Capitals in the second round before winning the Eastern Conference again. In a rematch with the Red Wings, the Penguins prevail in a classic seven-game series.
1993: Some say this is the best Penguins team ever. Lemieux misses two months getting cancer treatments, but returns in March and wins the scoring title. The Pens are the top seed in the East with 119 points, a franchise record that still stands. They close the regular season on a 17-game win streak, an NHL record that still stands. They are widely favored to three-peat. In the second round of the playoffs, they lose a heartbreaking Game 7, at home, to a clearly inferior New York Islanders team.
2010: Possibly the most complete team, so far, of the Crosby-Malkin era. Sid scores a career-high 51 goals. The Pens are widely favored to return to the finals for the third straight season, especially after the top-seeded Capitals go down in the first round of the playoffs. In the second round, the Penguins lose a heartbreaking Game 7, at home – the last game ever at Mellon/Civic Arena – to a clearly inferior Montreal Canadiens team.
This could go on for awhile. Lemieux played just 17 regular season games in 1993-94; Crosby played in just 8 regular season games in the two seasons following his concussion in January of 2011. The first round loss to the underdog Capitals in 1994? That’s the 1990s equivalent of last season’s stunning collapse against the Flyers. There was a 48-game lockout shortened season in 1995, just like – well, you know.
The point of this isn’t to suggest these goofy similarities mean anything. No one is predicting that Crosby will be forced into an early retirement (like Lemieux was) or that Malkin will someday develop gambling problems and eventually demand a trade by saying he’s “dying alive” in Pittsburgh (like Jagr did) or that this year’s Penguins will fall in the Eastern Conference Finals to a clearly inferior Sun Belt expansion team (like the 1996 Penguins did).
No, the point of this is to remember there are no guarantees in sports. The Penguins entered this shortened season as the Stanley Cup favorites, just as they were when last season’s playoffs began. For the foreseeable future, the team should be among the league’s top contenders. Barring injuries, another Stanley Cup run seems more likely than not.
But as favorites, as winners, as the big men on campus, the fear is that the pinnacle is in the past and not the future. In the spring of 1993, as Lemieux and the Penguins were blowing through the league and poised to capture a third straight Cup, no one could have imagined that it would be another 15 seasons before they returned to the Finals. In the spring of 2010, as the Penguins appeared on track for a second straight championship, no one could have imagined that their first round dusting of the Senators would be, to date, their last playoff series win.
So let’s all take a step back from the ledge after the Penguins’ 3-3 (gasp!) start. A look at the big picture may be somewhat alarming, but it’s good to know that the ending to the Crosby-Malkin era has not yet been written.
