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Penguins Today: The American influence that shaped Pittsburgh's NHL history

5 December 2024Last Update :
Penguins Today: The American influence that shaped Pittsburgh's NHL history

A relatively light week (so far) for the Penguins coincided, not without coincidence, with USA Hockey’s Hall of Fame ceremony in Pittsburgh last night. The class of inductees is impressive, with a couple of former Penguins — Kevin Stevens and Matt Cullen — carrying a Black and Gold flag for the Red, White and Blue.

Starting with Tuesday night at PPG Paints Arena, where many hockey world notables with ties to the Penguins attended the game to honor those two inductees, it’s impossible not to reflect upon how Americans have shaped Pittsburgh’s NHL franchise.

So with little news on the Penguins front between days of consecutive practices, let’s use Penguins Today to look at the most important Americans in franchise history.

The architects

• Craig Patrick, who transformed the Penguins from a postseason contender to back-to-back Stanley Cup champion and marquee franchise in the 1990s, was the late Herb Brooks’ top assistant coach for the 1980 “Miracle On Ice” gold medalist men’s hockey team. He was also GM of the 2002 men’s squad, coached by Brooks, and won a silver medal.

• Patrick’s hiring of Bob Johnson as coach proved a seismic shift for the Penguins. In only one season, “The Badger” instilled a team and organization with confidence and championship mettle — enthusiastically shepherding the first Cup team in Pittsburgh. A play on his most famous phrase (“Every day is a great day for hockey”) remains painted on the walls in the dressing rooms at PPG Paints Arena and UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex.

Also, it’s about to get dusty …

• Ray Shero, Patrick’s predecessor as Penguins GM, is one of only three men to run a Cup-winning hockey operations in Pittsburgh. His decision to make Dan Bylsma the head coach late in the 2008-09 season sparked the Penguins’ third Cup run, paved the way for Bylsma to set franchise records for games coached and victories, and formed the manager-coach foundation that assembled Team USA at the 2014 Olympics.

• Bylsma’s team records have since been broken by Mike Sullivan, who will coach Team USA at the upcoming 4 Nations Face-Off and the Winter Games in 2026. The GM of those American teams is Bill Guerin, a player acquired by Shero for Bylsma’s Penguins at the 2009 NHL trade deadline. Guerin not only finished his USA Hockey Hall of Fame career playing for the Penguins but cut his managerial teeth with the club before taking over the Minnesota Wild. And Sullivan, a two-time Cup winner with the Penguins, not only reset the coaching records in Pittsburgh, but he ended up being to Sidney Crosby’s era what Johnson was for Mario Lemieux’s: a guiding light figure.

The players

As for players, well, the Penguins’ Mount Rushmore includes a French Canadian (Lemieux), a Maritimes Canadian (Crosby) and two dominant Europeans (Jaromir Jagr, Evgeni Malkin). After those four is a laundry list of American-born players who played big roles on the franchise’s best teams.

• That group is led by Stevens, one of the best power forwards of the 1990s and a galvanizing presence for the 1991 and 1992 title teams. He’s the second-greatest winger for a franchise that employed Jagr and also had Jake Guentzel, who became Crosby’s best winger and will play for Team USA at the 4 Nations. That’s saying a lot, but it’s not a stretch to say Stevens is as “Pittsburgh” (proud, loud and tough) as any player to wear the Skating Penguin crest.

• Cullen was the “Dad” for the 2016 and 2017 Cup teams, a role-playing veteran who did many little things that paid big dividends on and off the ice. And Americans such as Guentzel and Bryan Rust emerged as big-game players in the 2016 and 2017 postseasons, respectively.

• Still, the Penguins’ most recent silvery stretch is owed in big ways to Phil Kessel, whose offbeat personality, indifference to pressure and skill — especially as a passer on the power play — made his brief tenure in Pittsburgh unforgettable in all the right ways.

• Tom Barrasso’s Hockey Hall of Fame career started with one of the greatest rookie seasons by any NHL goalie, but it’s in Pittsburgh where he solidified his candidacy. He was the Penguins’ first true franchise goalie, not to mention the backbone of the back-to-back teams in the early 1990s.

• The Cup teams were littered with Americans who left indelible marks in Pittsburgh. Joe Mullen resurrected his Hockey Hall of Fame career here in the 1990s. Shawn McEachern launched his steady career here with a memorable 1992 postseason. Ryan Malone was the best home-grown (literally) winger on the 2008 team that fell a couple games short of the Cup. But holdovers from that group who went on to form a formidable defense corps for the 2009 Cup winners include Brooks Orpik, Mark Eaton, Rob Scuderi and Hal Gill. Scuderi might have been “The Piece” in the 2009 Cup Final, but Orpik became a top-pairing staple in Pittsburgh for six seasons.

The voices

• Phil Bourque was a role player (and amateur poet) with the Penguins in the 1980s and 1990s; a beloved teammate with a personality that could cheer up Eeyore. He’s wielded arguably more influence as a broadcaster who’s spent the last couple of decades calling games with one of America’s legendary hockey play-by-play voices, Mike Lange, and shepherding the new voices of Penguins Hockey: Josh Getzoff and, this season, Joe Brand.

• Lange casts a large shadow in Pittsburgh, deservedly so. He didn’t invent goal calls, but he damn sure perfected them.

• Eddie Olczyk is the only American to play, coach and broadcast games for the Penguins. He wasn’t here for a long time in any role, but he’s a big figure in franchise lore.

• Paul Steigerwald started working on the business side, went from Lange’s longest-serving color analyst to the main play-by-play person on TV, and continues to be a staple as the postgame show co-host on the radio side. It’s impossible to overstate the importance of Steigwerwald, reporter-turned-executive Tom McMillian and dean of Pittsburgh hockey reporting Dave Molinari — the only local recipient of the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award — when it comes to educating a non-traditional market on the nuances of hockey while also capturing the greatest moments in franchise history.

As with any bullet-pointed rundown, this one doesn’t do justice to the scope of what the Americans mentioned above did for the Penguins, let alone hockey in Pittsburgh. If I left out somebody big or small, mention them in the comments, please and thank you.

One last thing …

Team USA revealed its roster for the 4 Nations Face-Off last night. It features Guentzel, who most hockey fans probably still think of primarily for his time with the Penguins, and a couple of Pittsburgh-area players: J.T. Miller and Vincent Trocheck.

One thing the Penguins have never known is a title team featuring an American as its best and/or most prominent player. Maybe that never happens, but it would be a fun era to cover. This American will keep his fingers crossed to see the only thing he hasn’t on this beat.

Don’t miss

• Pressure might be too strong a word, as I’m not sure any of the participating teams in 4 Nations view the tournament as anything more than a glorified tuneup for the Olympics. Still, there’s an emerging view that Team USA might be on the verge of a golden era (pun intended) when it comes to the top level of men’s hockey, and Dom Luszczszyn’s roster rankings make that case.

• The Athletic complied this cool look at the best current and historic players by age. Won’t argue with most of the picks. Any list is subjective. But c’mon … some perspective is needed. The best player in a 35-year-old season was Lemieux. He scored 35 goals and 76 points in 43 games — that’s a 66-goal/145-point pace in the dead puck era — after not playing for three and a half seasons. Eat your heart out, Johnny Bucyk.

(Photo of Kevin Stevens during the Penguins’ USA Hockey Hall of Fame Class of 2024 ceremony: Joe Sargent / NHLI via Getty Images)

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