Who was your favorite hockey player growing up? If you grew up in the 1980’s it was probably Mario Lemieux or Paul Coffey, maybe Kevin Stevens or Randy Cunnyworth. If you grew up in the 1990’s maybe your childhood intersected with Jaromir Jagr, Darius Kaspariatis, and Alexi Kovalev. The newest generation of fans has Sid, Geno, Fluery, and Letang. As we age we always look back fondly at those times from our childhoods and reminisce on our heroes seeming larger than life; but if those memories are quantified, we realize that the memories are a lot fonder than the actualities.
I grew up with the Penguins having Robbie Brown being fed easy goals from an in his prime Mario Lemieux, a force of nature that hasn’t, nor will ever likely be replicated again. (This is the same Rob Brown that current Flyers General Manager Ron Hextall brandished his stick at, while wielding it like a medieval spear, once a Flyer always a Flyer.) Mario also took career journeyman Warren Young from thirteenth forward to a million dollar payday as an eighteen year old,and made Dan Frawley and Rod Buskas more than marginal NHL talents. Every game wasn’t a Penguins victory, and every goal wasn’t a highlight reel tally. There wasn’t as much clutching and grabbing, nor dumping and chasing, but every defenseman didn’t gain the zone like the doctor Paul Coffey either. Looking back that’s only how I remembered it, through rose colored glasses albeit. Through the years Mario was magnificent, Jagr controlled the pucks through the muck and grind of the trap, Alexi Kovalev could stick handle through a phone booth, and Geno was score, but there also are players that we enjoyed for other reasons as kids and through the years.
Dan Quinn, Rob Brown, Tony Tanti, Rick Tocchet, Tomas Sandstrom, Luc Robataille, Alexei Morozov, Marian Hossa, and Jerome Iginla; these are some players that jump out to me and I am sure that each fan has his or her own players that they remember from through the years.
Someone who most Penguins fans born before 1985 will surly remember is Zarley Zalapski. Who didn’t love Zarley Zalapski, with a name like that what nine year old Penguin fan in 1990 wouldn’t have wanted a number 33 Penguins jersey. However, only diehard Penguin fans remember much about Zalapski’s career other than his name and number. Zalapski actually had a pretty forgettable career after his fourth overall selection in the 1986 NHL entry draft and All Rookie team selection. Well, other than the fact that \ Zalapski was a one moving piece in the trade that finally put the Penguins on the path to Stanley Cup Championships.
Has there been a more franchise alerting trade than on March 4, 1991 in which Zalapski, John Cullen, and Jeff Parker were moved to the Hartford Whalers for Ron Francis, Ulf Samuelsson, and Grant Jennings? While Parker was basically a throw in, Zalapski was a recent top five overall draft pick who had already registered 135 points in less than 200 NHL games as a Penguin and was logging top power play minutes on the famed double trouble power play unit of the late 80s. Also, few if any remember that John Cullen had 94 points at the time of the trade, which is the record for the most points by an individual at the time he was traded in a season in NHL history. This is backed up by the fact that only Wayne Gretzky, Bernie Nichols, Joe Thornton, Teemu Selanne Jean Ratelle and Cullen had been traded while in the midst of a one hundred point season.
In this trade the Penguins moved a defenseman most fans loved and had pegged for future success and a player who was leading his team and was in the top four in scoring for the entire league at the time of the trade. Would have the Penguins won their cups if not for this trade? Revisionist history says not likely, the physical presence of Samuelsson and the veteran leadership of Francis changed the makeup of the team. Coupled with the cup pedigree held by Bryan Trottier and the pure elegance of Mario and a young Jaromir Jagr I cannot remember a team that I enjoyed watching more than the 1991-1994 Pittsburgh Penguins.
Sometimes the popular opinion isn’t the right opinion, at the time of the trade some Penguin fans were upset, they had traded two budding superstars for players who were a few years older and at that time most fans didn’t realize what type of game Ulfie and Ronnie played. The Penguins were at a cross roads in 1991, trying to become a contender, trying to take that next step from a fun freewheeling team that scored and was exciting to watch, into a team that could win during the grind of the playoffs. The Penguins face a similar crossroads this season, coming off of five consecutive seasons of playoff disappointment can the Penguins take that next step with the roster the way it is currently constructed or is an influx or change needed? You can’t be afraid to make a move if you truly believe its going to help you win a cup, while the Zalapski Cullen trade resulted in two Stanley Cups many other deadline deals have not, but with the roster constructed the way it is today do you believe that that Penguins can win the Stanley Cup in 2015?
Post Script – Zarley Zalapski would bounce around the league for a few more years and would never meet the expectations of a top four pick and Cullen would unfortunately never know a prime of his career after being struck down with a severe neck injury and brain cancer during his career.
Before Paul Coffey was traded to the Pens, they had another really good underrated player that I really enjoyed (not Warren Young or Mike Bullard who were a year or 2 earlier on a team that feature a very young Marty McSorley).... but Craig Simpson. #18. Simpson was a young up and coming player who was traded to Edmonton to get Coffey, but that year he was traded, he scored a combined 56 goals.
However my all time favorite Pens player was Paul Coffey. I remember his debut with the Pens. It was against the Hartford Whalerrs. I was in the basement helping my Dad with something and we had the game on the radio. I had no idea we had gotten Paul Coffey back in those pre-internet days. When a trade happened, you were surprised as hell, cause you didnt know it was coming. All I knew was that Coffey had played with Gretzky and the Oilers... So listening to that game all I heard was "Coffey to Lemieux, Lemieux to Coffey. It was beautiful.
#77. He was the first Player jersey I ever had. Back in those days it was really freaking hard to find player jerseys, so my Grandfather who played hockey himself, got me an Authentic Pens home jersey (back when Home jerseys were White) and he took it to a sports shop and had the numbers and name embroidered, which is what a lot of people had to do back then.
Dont have the frickin jersey anymore
