Pittsburgh Penguins

Pittsburgh Penguins
File:Pittsburgh Penguins.gif	File:Pens.png
Logo	Alternate logo
Founded	1967-1968
Home ice	Mellon Arena (formerly Civic Arena)
Based in	Pittsburgh
Colors	Black, white, silver, gold
League	National Hockey League
Head coach	Ed Olczyk
General manager	Craig Patrick
Owner	Mario Lemieux

The Pittsburgh Penguins are a National Hockey League (NHL) team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Founded: 1967-1968

Arena: Mellon Arena (capacity 17,537), formerly known as the Civic Arena

Current Coach: Ed Olczyk

Uniform colors: Black, white, vegas gold, grey.

Logo design: A penguin skating, holding a hockey stick

Division titles won: 1991, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998

Conference championships won: 1991, 1992

Stanley Cup wins: 2 - 1991, 1992

Added in the NHL's 1967 expansion, along with the Minnesota North Stars, Los Angeles Kings, Philadelphia Flyers, Oakland Seals, and St. Louis Blues.

Franchise history

Being the location of a very successful American Hockey League franchise and a former NHL team in the Twenties, Pittsburgh was one of the expansion teams added when the NHL doubled in size in 1967. The new teams were hampered by restrictive rules that kept most major talent with the "Original Six", and beyond aging ex-Rangers star Andy Bathgate and hardrock ex-Bruin defenseman Leo Boivin, the first Penguins team was manned by a cast of former minor leaguers. The club nevertheless finished just six points out of first place in the closely fought West Division, but finished out of the playoffs.

File:Pitpeng.png
Main Logo

File:Pens.png
Alternate Logo

Bathgate led the team in scoring, but he and Boivin were soon gone. Despite a handful of decent players such as right wing Ken Schinkel, Keith McCreary, agitator Bryan Watson and goaltender Les Binkley, talent was thin, and the Penguins' record was poor in the early years, missing the playoffs five of their first seven seasons.

File:PIT 67-68.gif

The original Penguins logo from 1967.

Tragedy struck the Penguins in 1970 when rookie center Michel Briere, who finished third in scoring on the team during his only season in the league, was injured in a car crash. He died in 1971 after spending a year in hospital.

For a few years in the mid-Seventies Pittsburgh iced some powerful offensive clubs, led by forwards Syl Apps, Jr., Lowell MacDonald, Jean Pronovost, Rick Kehoe, Pierre Larouche, and Ron Schock, and defensemen Ron Stackhouse and Dave Burrows, but the Pens' success was always neutralized by mediocre team defense and poor goaltending, and the club never went far in the playoffs.

By the early Eighties Pittsburgh had Kehoe, star defenseman Randy Carlyle, prolific scorers Paul Gardner and Mike Bullard and little else. The team had the league's worst record in both the 1983 and 1984 seasons. But in the 1984 NHL Entry Draft Pittsburgh acquired wunderkind Mario Lemieux, who would become one of the great players in NHL history. After four more years out of the playoffs, Lemieux led the league in scoring in 1988-89 and the Penguins had given him a supporting cast for the first time, with superstar defenseman Paul Coffey coming from the Edmonton Oilers, role player Bob Errey, and high-scoring Kevin Stevens, Rob Brown, and John Cullen. The team made the playoffs, where they lost in the second round to the Philadelphia Flyers.

Mario Lemieux
Mario Lemieux

In 1990-91, the Penguins reached the top. They drafted star Czech right winger Jaromir Jagr, and through the 1990s, Jagr and Lemieux were two of the league's biggest scoring threats. Adding that to Stevens and Coffey, up-and-coming Mark Recchi, star center Ron Francis (acquired in a major trade with the Hartford Whalers), and the goaltending of Tom Barrasso, the Penguins became the league's best team, beating the Minnesota North Stars in the Stanley Cup finals. The following season, the team lost coach Bob Johnson to cancer, and Scotty Bowman took over as coach. Under the legendary Bowman, they repeated as Stanley Cup champions.

Cancer nearly dealt the Penguins a double whammy in 1993. Not only were they reeling from Johnson's death, but Mario Lemieux was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease. His comeback only two months after the diagnosis was one of the league's greatest "feel-good" stories of all time. Despite the difficulties the team faced, Pittsburgh finished with a 56-21-7 record, winning the franchise's first and only Presidents' Trophy, as the team with the most points in the regular season. Despite their strong play in the regular season, the team was upset in the second round of the playoffs by the New York Islanders.

File:Pittsburghpenguinslogo80s.gif

Logo used (1972-1992)

File:Pittsburghpenguinslogo90s.gif

Logo used (1993-2001)

The Penguins continued to be a formidable team through the rest of the 1990s, but it came with a price. They had paid so much for their talent that they almost went bankrupt, and it took Lemieux (who retired in 1997) to take over the team in bankruptcy court -- having been owed many millions in deferred salary from his playing days and so being a principal creditor -- and prevent it from moving to Portland, Oregon. Costs proved a barrier to retaining promising young goaltender Patrick Lalime, who left after a single season and subsequently became a star for the Ottawa Senators. Lemieux shocked the hockey world by deciding to come back in late 2000 and led the Penguins into the 2001 playoffs, where they lost to the New Jersey Devils in the Eastern Conference Finals.

Still, the Penguins needed to cut costs. They did so in a big way by dealing Jagr to the Washington Capitals in the summer of 2001 for a song (prospects Kris Beech, Michael Sivek, and Ross Lupaschuk, and $4.9 million). The absence of Jagr proved devastating to the Penguins, and in 2002 they missed the playoffs for the first time in 12 years. Further difficulties on and off the ice saw them trade fan favorite Alexei Kovalev the next season, quickly followed by the departures of Robert Lang and Martin Straka.

The 2003-04 NHL season was expected to be a rebuilding year for the Penguins, acquiring first overall pick Marc-Andre Fleury in the NHL Entry Draft and the hiring of new head coach (and former Penguin and commentator) Eddie Olczyk. Cost restrictions made the signing of Fleury rather tense. Fleury showed resolve with his excellent goaltending, and although the Penguins continued with the worst NHL record, Fleury showed that he could shrug off hard shots from some of the league's best players. However, more troubles besieged the Penguins when Lemieux suffered a hip injury early in the season. Months later it was determined that he would sit the rest of the season out to recover. The Pens then traded away star Martin Straka to the Los Angeles Kings and later had to send Fleury back down to his junior league team due to further money problems.

While the Penguins have suffered small-market syndrome for most of their existence, cost-cutting has prevented another collapse into insolvency, and financially, the team was one of the better-managed NHL franchises between its 1998 bankruptcy and the 2004-05 NHL lockout. Thanks to significant post-season runs, the Penguins broke even in 2000 and turned a small profit in 2001. Failure to make the playoffs in the next three seasons hurt the team's bottom line, but the shedding of contracts kept the team afloat as other franchises, like the Ottawa Senators, faced significant losses or declared bankruptcy.

In the summer of 2004, the Penguins lost forward Aleksey Morozov, who decided to sign with the Russian league in the light of the impending lockout this season. However, the Penguins managed to re-sign one of their biggest fan favorites and former stars, Mark Recchi.

With the 2004-05 NHL season cancelled due to the NHL lockout, several Penguins still signed to the AHL affiliate Wilkes-Barre Penguins played in the minors, while players such as Aleksey Morozov and Lasse Pirjetä honed their talents in the elite European and Russian leagues. On July 22, 2005, the Penguins won an unprecedented draft lottery, in which all 30 teams had weighted chances to win the first overall pick of the 2005 NHL Entry Draft July 30 in Ottawa, Ontario. With the choice, the Penguins chose junior league superstar Sidney Crosby from the QMJHL.

With the new salary cap included in the CBA signed by the owners and players to end the 2004-05 NHL lockout the Penguins begin to think in major stars again. So they signed in the 2005 free agency the Russian offensive defenseman Sergei Gonchar, acquired goalie Jocelyn Thibault from the Chicago Blackhawks via trade, also signed "big man" John Leclair from the Philadelphia Flyers, and the Slovakian scoring forward Zigmund Palffy adding more stars to the team.

Notable players

Current Squad

As of October 31, 2005

Goaltenders
Number	Player	Catches	Acquired	Place of Birth
31	Sebastien Caron	L	unknown	unknown, Canada
41	Jocelyn Thibault	L	unknown	Quebec, Canada

Defensemen
Number	Player	Shoots	Acquired	Place of Birth
2	Josef Melichar	L	unknown	unknown, Czech Repuplic
3	Steve Poapst	L	unknown	unknown, Canada
5	Rob Scuderi	R	unknown	unknown, United States
6	Ryan Whitney	L	unknown	unknwon, United States
22	Ric Jackman	L	unknown	Ontario, Canada
24	Lyle Odelein	L	2005	Saskatchewan, Canada
32	Dick Tärnström	R	unknown	unknown, Sweden
44	Brooks Orpik	R	unknown	unknown, United States
55	Sergei Gonchar	R	2005	unknown, U.S.S.R.

Forwards
Number		Player	Shoots	Positon	Acquired	Place of Birth
8		Mark Recchi - A	R	RW	2005	unknown, Canada
9		Rico Fata	?	C	unknown	Sault Ste. Marie,Ontario, Canada
10		John LeClair - A	L	LW	2005	St. Albans, Vermont,United States
11		Lasse Pirjeta	L	LW	2003	unknown, Finland
12		Ryan Malone	?	F	unknown	unknown, United States
17		Matt Murley	?	F	unknown	unknown, United States
25		Maxime Talbot	?	F	unknown	Quebec, Canada
33		Zigmund Pálffy	R	RW	2005	unknown, Czech Republic
36		Andre Roy	R	RW	unknown	unknown, United States
37		Ryan VandenBussche	?	F	unknown	unknown, Canada
41		Shane Endicott	R	RW	unknown	unknown,Canada
53		Eric Christensen	?	F	unknown	unknown, Canada
66		Mario Lemeiux - C	L	C	1984	Montreal, Quebec, Canada
71	Template:Country data BRS	Konstantin Koltsov	?	F	unknown	Belarus
87		Sidney Crosby	R	RW	2005	Nova Scotia, Canada

Team Captains

Ab McDonald 1967-68
no captain 1968-73
Ron Schock 1973-77
Jean Pronovost 1977-78
Orest Kindrachuk 1978-81
Randy Carlyle 1981-84
Mike Bullard 1984-86
Mike Bullard & Terry Ruskowski 1986-87
Dan Frawley & Mario Lemieux 1987-88
Mario Lemieux 1988-94
Ron Francis 1994-95
Mario Lemieux 1995-97
Ron Francis 1997-98
Jaromir Jagr 1998-01
Mario Lemieux 2001-present

Hall of Famers

Scotty Bowman (coach 1991-1993, inducted 1991)
Paul Coffey (inducted 2004)
Bob Johnson (inducted 1992)
Mario Lemieux (inducted 1997)
Mike Lange (announcer 1975-Present, inducted 2001)
Joe Mullen (inducted 2000)
Larry Murphy (inducted 2004)
Craig Patrick (general manager 1990-Present, coach 1989-1990 and 1996-1997, inducted 2001)

Not to be forgotten

Retired numbers

21 Michel Brière (retired January 5, 2001)
66 Mario Lemieux (retired November 19, 1997 until December 27, 2000)
99 Wayne Gretzky (retired league-wide by the NHL 1999)

External links