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REWIND: Mario's Triumphant Return · Pittsburgh Sports Memories

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hey everyone, Tim here.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: This week we're going to look back at one of our favorite Pittsburgh sports memories involving Mario Lemieux.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: But before we get started, we wanted to let you know that we've partnered with Fanatics.com to offer our listeners the chance to get some great penguins gear, not to mention a whole bunch of stealers, pirates, or pit merchandise as well.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: You can find all of that at Fanatics using the link in the show description.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: And the best part is you'll be supporting the show at the same time, helping us earn commission that we can use towards providing more great content for this podcast.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Again, check out the show description for that link to fanatics.com and enjoy this episode on Mary OLEMie's comeback.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, everybody.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to another episode of the Pittsburgh Sports Memories Podcast.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: On today's show, we are going to talk about the time that Mario Lemieux came out of retirement for the Pittsburgh Penguins.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm Tim Hannon, and with me as always is I'm Steve Wirt.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: And um so Steve, I I just I started thinking about this idea of athletes making comebacks.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: And um I I was I was like, you know, does that usually go well or is it usually not go well?
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: I I kind of was thinking the latter.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: And and so I made a list, and it's it's not a comprehensive list, but I made a list of like notable athletes who had made comebacks.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I had two criteria for this list.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: One was that it was just I just limited it to the last 30 years because I didn't want to like pull some baseball player that fought in World War I and came back or whatever.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: And and also um my criteria was like the guy had to be away for at least one full season from their sport.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, Brett Favre retiring every 15 minutes and then changing his mind doesn't count.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: They had to be gone for they had to be gone for at least one full season.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna read this list to you, and then at the end, I want you to tell me like, do you think it worked out well for these guys?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Not well, you know, or was it was it kind of mixed?
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: So here's my list.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: Okay Michael Jordan, Deion Sanders, George Foreman, Reggie White, Claude Lemieux, Jason Witten, Randall Cunningham, Magic Johnson, Rob Gronkowski.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_03: It's I I mean, do you just want me to blanket every person?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, because it No, tell me tell me who you think it worked out for and who it didn't work out for, I guess.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_03: Well, Mike, Michael Jordan, it definitely worked out, but that's there's always the um what's it would we call it urban legend that that was for gambling.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_03: Well, well, so Jordan had two comebacks.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_03: That second one, that third one he stunk.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_03: The third one he stunk, the second one not, but that really he retired.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, there's always reasons.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, the Dion St.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_03: Was that with the Redskins the 2004 to 2005?
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: No, that was Baltimore.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: Played for Baltimore.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_03: That was a joke.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_03: He was a joke at the end there.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_03: I remember that was the one where like Marvin Harrison ran by him.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_03: That was with Washington.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_03: It was like, Marvin, come back, please.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Dion.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_03: George Foreman.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_03: Uh he did walk, he did knock out Michael Moore, didn't he?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: He won the heavyweight championship.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_03: But then, but then he wasn't gonna pay a lot for that muffler.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_03: So wow.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Reggie White came back.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_03: I don't even remember.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: He played, he played, yeah, he played one season for the Carolina Panthers.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I guess for me not even remembering it, uh, sure.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: It didn't go well for Reggie White.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Claude Lemieux, Lemux.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: He he came back.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: He retired in 2003, and then he came back in You know who I'm confusing him with?
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_03: Claude Giroux, right now.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_03: No, he's still playing.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: Claude Lemieu's guy that played for the that played for the Devils, and then he played for Colorado.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: And um, yeah, he came back like years later to play for the Sharks.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think he played in like 18 games and he had like one assist.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: So that didn't go well.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_03: Jason Witten had like kind of a mediocre season in Oakland, didn't he?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_03: Or he retired again.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: He retired again just recently, yeah.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it wasn't horrible, but I mean, it was probably better than his Monday night football stuff, I guess.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_03: Which is a low bar.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_03: Randall Cunningham had a great comeback in '97, but that might have been more attributed to like the fact he had like, I don't know, Chris Carter.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_03: Who's the other guy?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_03: Jake Reed.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_03: Randy Moss.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, some guy named some rookie named Randy Moss.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_03: But they had everybody forgets they had Jake Reed and Chris Carter who were really good the year before.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_03: And then you just added like one of the greatest wide receivers of all time to like two really good wide receivers.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: For sure, but but he was still the guy throwing them the ball, so we gotta give him credit there.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: He had a he had that one really good season in Minnesota after after he came out of retirement.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and then he really he kind of you know fell back.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_03: Sold out after that, yeah.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_03: Magic Johnson, definitely 96, definitely.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_03: I remember he was on the dream team in '92.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_03: And like, remember the Australian team wouldn't play him?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, because he was HIV positive.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the weird thing about him, is he didn't really retire voluntarily.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it wasn't like, oh, my career's over.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: He kind of retired because of the HIV diagnosis.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: But when he came back, I don't remember that going very well.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think he came back as like a power forward instead of a guard.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it wasn't very good.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_03: And Gronkowski, I would say, had like kind of like uh like I don't know, like mediocre season.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_03: Like he caught two passes in the Super Bowl for touchdowns.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_03: But he wasn't bad.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_03: He wasn't he wasn't the Gronk of old, though.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_03: He he was like a solid player, he just wasn't dominant.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: No, and I'm I'm glad he I'm sure he's glad he made the decision, you know, seeing that he won a Super Bowl.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: I I think to me, like the whole list, there were guys that had more success than others.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that anybody I I think Mario's unique in this aspect.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that anybody on that list left during their absolute like prime and then came back and continued it.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: So some of those guys did leave during their prime, like Jordan.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: When he retired in '98, I mean, he had just won three straight championships, but when he came back with the Wizards, he wasn't the same guy.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, Randall Cunningham came back and was great, but when he retired the first time, he was, I think he was a backup at that point.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: So um I don't I don't know that anybody kind of like retired great and came back great, if that makes sense.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's very rare, that's for sure.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: So Mario Lemieux, let's let's talk about him.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um if if you're uh if you're a Pittsburgh sports fan, you you already know the story.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: He penguins are like this middling franchise until they draft Lemieux in 1984.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: He quickly becomes one of the greatest hockey players ever, he sets all kinds of records.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it takes a while for the Pens to put enough of a team around him to be competitive, but they do um eventually win two back-to-back Stanley Cups in 1991 and 1992.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh after that, they do go deep into the playoffs a few more times, but they never do make it back to the Stanley Cup finals.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: And Mario, meanwhile, deals with all kinds of health concerns with his back, and of course, has the bout with Hodgkin's disease.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: And in 1997, there's really two things that factor into this decision.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's it is the the aforementioned health concerns for Lemieux, but also the direction that the NHL is going at this point.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: They've they've decided to embrace this clutch and grab style of hockey, and and Mario really doesn't want any piece of that.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: He sees he sees the way the direction's going.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: He's he's really fighting the health issues, and he decides to retire at the age of 31.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: And Steve, I had forgotten, I guess I had forgotten how young he was when he retired.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think because he he had been there for so long at that point, he'd been there for 13 years.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and I think because he just he had started when he was like 18, so it felt like he had a full career, but he was only 31 years old.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_03: Uh yeah, they start him young there, and uh, it's kind of like I guess the only thing LeBron kind of had that that or Kobe had that young start to their careers.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, 18 is definitely for a professional, is kind of besides like tennis or golf or something, you know.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_03: It's definitely young.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_03: So I think that's why he seemed like he was here a lot longer and he should be a lot older.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_03: Because you figure if he would have come out like 24, 25, what does that make him like 38, 39?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_03: No, right?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_03: So not I mean it's only seven years, but I guess there's a big difference between 31 and let me tell you what, there's a big difference between 31 and 40.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: I can vouch for that as well.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think the um there's something goes on when you hit 40, your warranty.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_03: You ever had something and your warranty runs out, and as soon as the day it does everything, like breaks.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, my warranty ran out when I turned 40.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_03: So totally agree.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: Totally agree.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and and so we mentioned this before that Mario, when he when he went out, he was still really good.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: The the year he retired, '97, he won't he won the Art Ross Trophy that year.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: So he was the league's leading scorer the year he retires.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: He's inducted into the Hall of Fame.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: And and he was just Mario Lemieux for me.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he was my favorite Pittsburgh athlete.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: I just idolized him growing up.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: I I can remember my bedroom, like whenever I was old enough to um, you know, decide like how I wanted to decorate my bedroom, whatever age that was.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, you know, enough with this little kid stuff.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: I want you know my cool stuff in here.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: And the first thing I wanted was a poster of Mario Lemieux.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: That was the first thing that I ever put up on my the wall of my bedroom.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_03: Uh was that right beside your Rita Hayworth poster?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Or Raquel Welch.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, no.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_03: You're tunneling, tunneling out of your room.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Tunneling out of my room.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: It only took me 20 years.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, so Mario was just my idol, and um him retiring was was tough.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: It was tough on those of us that were big fans of him, but it was also tough on the franchise.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: They his retirement kind of turns them into a middle-of-the-road team.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: They the penguins still have Yaramariagar, who is the best player in hockey at this point.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and that that definitely propels the penguins probably further than they they should have gotten in in these um seasons after Mario retires.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: They make the playoffs in 98 and in 1999.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: In 99, they shock the Devils in the first round.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the Devils were a number one seed, the Penguins were an eight seed.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but they bow out in the second round against Toronto.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: The Devils.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: So at this point, at this point, um, the Penguins, they're not bad like they were in the 80s.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: They're not a bad team, but they're they're nowhere near where they were during the the Mario years of the 90s when they were real Stanley Cup contenders pretty much every single year.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: And Craig Patrick is the general manager at this point, and and he sort of tries to recapture all that old glory, but I would say probably none of his moves are the caliber of what he was able to do earlier in the decade when he was swinging the trades for Ron Francis and Rick Tocket and those guys.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: And he's also churning through head coaches pretty quickly as well.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_03: I thought Ivan Halenka was going to work out, but that's oh we will talk about him.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: He's coming.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the attendance also declines without Lemieux.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and owner Howard Baldwin had had so we we did an episode, we called it the um the goal that saved the pens, and we really went into detail about uh what was happening there at the end of the 90s, and and we went into detail about how Howard Baldwin just made all these just terrible business decisions, and it really just sinks the team into the ground financially.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and it it leads to a scenario where Mario Lemieux ends up buying the franchise in the summer of 1999.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: He he the team was in bankruptcy, he was their biggest creditor, and he ends up as the owner.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and and that was really that was a shocker because Mario had said he had no intention of staying involved in hockey.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't want to be a coach or a broadcaster or an executive.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: He really just wanted to spend time with his family in golf.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's what he wanted to do.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and when he takes on the ownership of the franchise, again, we talked about this in that previous episode, but that was a huge risk.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: That was a big risk because there was no guarantee that he was going to be able to turn things around.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: There was no guarantee that that hockey had a future in Pittsburgh.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's it's not like it is now.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, back then it was just on very, very shaky ground.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: So Mario takes on that risk, and there's all these great stories of how Mario um paid people back 100 cents on the dollar.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh like some some contractor had done some job at the arena and the penguins owed him money and they had never paid them.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and I think, Steve, what is it?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: You're supposed to get 10 cents on the dollar with bankruptcy.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you can, yeah.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: And a settlement.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_03: And that's even like if you're like a regular employee that receives a paycheck, like, you know, so like if you got had a hundred dollar paycheck, you would get what, ten bucks?
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: Am I my math right?
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so and so Mario, because just because he thinks it's the right thing to do, he actually pays a lot of these people that the team owes money to, the deals he didn't make, right, that the previous ownership had done, he pays him back a hundred percent.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just the kind of person Mario Lemieux is.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: So the 99 2000 season, that's Mario's first year as owner.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: And and I would say that year the Penguins start making some strides back towards becoming a contender.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: And and several things happened that year.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: One is the breakout of Alexei Kovalev.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they had acquired Kovalev the previous year, uh, but he he wasn't really he hadn't really done all that much.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: He he kind of, when he first came to Pittsburgh, he was kind of the same player he was in New York, which was a very talented player, but just didn't really produce.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, in 2000, he has a career high, 26 goals and 66 points.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: So he's now breaking out into superstar territory.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they had a couple other players too that that had breakout seasons.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: Robert Lange uh was it was a bit of a journeyman.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: He'd played for the Kings and Bruins, he'd also played in his native Czech Republic.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: He also has a career high in points that year.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Jan Hardina was another Czech player on the Penguins.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: He had a real solid season.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: He was a young guy.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and Patrick also makes a couple of other key moves during the season to improve the team.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: So we talked about him going through head coaches.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: In December, he fires head coach Kevin Constantine, who had clashed a lot with Jager, and replaces him with Herb Brooks.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: And if if you recognize that name, it's it's Herb Brooks is the the head coach of the United States um 1980 Olympic hockey team.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: So the Do you believe in Miracles team?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_03: Well, they had a relationship.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Craig Patrick was um I don't know if he what his position was on that team, but he was involved in the 1980 team also.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he was the assistant.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_03: I was he remember from the movie.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if he was like an assistant coach or he might have been an assistant coach because like they kind of good cop bad coped that team.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_03: Like Brooks was the bad cop and Patrick was the good cop.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I just I remember in the movie that Kurt Russell played Herb Brooks and then the guy from the Americans played uh Craig Patrick.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, they had a previous relationship.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: So now Herb Brooks is the coach of the Penguins.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and Patrick made a couple other moves.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: He he acquired a couple of defensemen, uh Bob Buvener, who was kind of the rugged stay-at-home guy, and then Yani Laukinen, who was more of a puck mover.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then he he also trades uh Tom Barrasso.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: And and Tom Barraso, of course, was the longtime goaltender.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: He'd been there forever, he had he had won the two Stanley Cups, and he picks up a veteran goalie named Ron Tugnut, and that was a really risky trade.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't think people remember how risky that was because Barrasso had a no-trade clause in his contract.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: So any trade involving Barrasso, Barraso had to sign off on.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: And Patrick made a deal with the, I think it was Ottawa, to trade him to Ottawa, and he said publicly that he was afraid, he almost didn't make the trade because he was afraid to tell Barrasso because all Barrasso had to say is I'm not going to Ottawa.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then the deal would be dead, and then he knew that Barrasso would just pout the rest of the season and kind of tank the goaltending platoon.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: So that was like Patrick, that was, and that kind of was the kind of person Barrasso was.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: But they but they do end up trading Barasso.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um Jagar wins the scoring title again.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: So all of those moves, uh Herb Brooks and new goaltender and breakout seasons, that all leads to a 37 and 37 record.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: So they finished the year right at 500.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: They do, they are the seventh seed in the playoffs.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but sometimes it's it's all about how you finish.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: And the Penguins had gotten hot, hot at the end of that 2000 season.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: They they beat the Capitals in the first round of the playoffs in a short series, thanks largely to the goaltending of Tugnut.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: And we talked about him, we did in a B-team episode where we talked about kind of the under underappreciated guys in Pittsburgh sports history.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: And Tugnut was one of those guys.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he was only here for a while, but had a very good playoff that year.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, in the second round, they they take a two games to nothing lead on the number one seeded Flyers, again, thanks largely to Tugnut.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: But then they come back home and they drop games three and games four in overtime at the Civic Arena.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: And that game over game four overtime, of course, was the infamous five overtime game.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um Steve, was it Keith Primo?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_03: Uh is that the Flyers?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_03: And uh who is that one guy, Keith Jones, who's another penguin hater that was on the ice for that.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, that one hurt.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's probably one of like outside of like the Cleveland game, like in the playoffs this year, that's one of the more painful Pittsburgh sports losses.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_03: So I mean we could do a whole up a whole podcast on painful Pittsburgh sports losses, but some of them already, but especially to rivals.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: And and I and I feel like if the Penguins so the Penguins were up two games to one at that point, if they get the next goal there, they win the series, right?
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like almost certainly they win the series if they get if they would have gotten the next goal in that five overtime game.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, that normally the team that wins those goes on to win.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: And they would have been up three games to one.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: That would have just broken the back of the Flyers.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: And they and then the Penguins would have been in the conference finals that year.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like they were that close.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: I think at that point the Penguins had still never beaten the Flyers in the playoffs.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_03: Am I you're correct.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_03: Because that wouldn't happen until the conference finals a couple years later, yeah.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_03: Correct.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and so losing to the Flyers in the playoffs was a trend, but but also losing overtime playoff games at home had become a trend.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they had actually dropped two overtime games at home in the second round against Toronto in 99.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Or I'm sorry, the series winner.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: You and I were watching that one together, Steve.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: Where the uh Toronto won an overtime to win the series.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then they dropped two overtime games at home in the second round against Philadelphia in 2000.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: So the the Penguins entered the next season, and this is the one we're going to focus on, the 2000-2001 season.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: They enter that season with some hope.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, on one hand, they had been really close to a deep playoff run, if not for some bad overtime losses.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but but on the other hand, they still have a lot of question marks.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Tugnut is gone, and now they're back to having really no option for a number one goalie.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: And also the team still centers around Jagger, and and that's okay because Jagger's really good, but Jagger also had been dealing with a bunch of injuries during this time.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: And and they're really one bad Jagger injury injury away from just being a non-playoff team.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_03: Well, don't don't worry about Yammer Jager.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_03: His career will still last another 20 years after this.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_03: I I think he still he played a full season.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, he just scored a he scored a goal like this 2021, he scored a goal like a week ago.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_03: Whatever Czech Republic team he's owns.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, and I think he's about to turn 50 years old.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: So he's 49, yes.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so the the coaching situation, her Brooks decides to step down.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: He wanted to spend more time with his wife.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so um Steve mentioned this guy already.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: The penguins bring in a guy named Ivan Halinka to be the head coach.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_03: Here's a weird thing.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_03: What is it weird that Her Brooks and Ivan Halinka both died in car accidents?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_03: Is that is that like some final destination stuff or that had a plan, they just didn't know it?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_03: I wow, that's that's Really weird.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: It was.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it was, and it was not, I mean, both of them died probably three or four years after this.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't that far after this.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: And both in car accidents, yeah.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so so Halenka was uh like he was a national hero in the Czech Republic.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um the the 1998 Winter Olympics, I think that was in Nogano, that was the first year that they had the NHL players be allowed to compete.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: And and the hype leading up to those Olympics for hockey was oh my gosh, Canada's gonna have like the dream team, like what the like the United States had in basketball.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Canada's gonna have Wayne Gretzky and all these guys, and and then you know, it wasn't just Canada, the Russians, and even the Americans, you know, like there were gonna be these really stacked teams of NHL superstars, and then the Czech Republic wins the gold medal.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that was pretty shocking at the time.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_03: That that's one of my favorite hockey moments of all time, still.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I rooted so because like the Americans were horrible that year.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_03: Like, didn't we trash?
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_03: I think we trashed their hotel room and stuff like that.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: That was that was bad.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but they had because they had that goal Dominic, I love Dominic Hosik, my favorite goalie of all time.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_03: And they had a good goalie, and then they beat that was that save against I think Lindros, where he just like swipes his glove and knocks the puck out of the air with his glove as he's on his back.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_03: And then they they play an absolute you talk about rivalry games, the Czech Republic against Russians, against the Russians.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_03: You don't realize, like, I guess if you don't understand, you do realize like Jagger wears 68 because that's to represent 1968, which is the year Russia invaded the Czech Czechoslovakia to re-establish whatever puppet government they had at the time.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_03: So that was an absolute like the Czechs don't like the Russians, and I don't know how the Russians feel about the Czechs, but that was that was a great game.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_03: That was a great game.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_03: But one of my favorite hockey memories there.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I love that team.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why, and that's why Helenka is like is well known at this point, especially in the Czech Republic.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and and so you know, obviously Jagger played on that team, and and there's all these we already mentioned there's all these other Czech players on on the Penguins already.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um Matthew Barnaby even joked at the time that he said I might have to change my name to Matthew Barnabov to get some ice time.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so so that seemed like a good fit, um, especially for Yager who didn't get along with coaches so well.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: But it was also a risk because Ivan Holinka, Steve, doesn't speak English.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_03: So me like going to like the Czech Republic to coach hockey.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_03: Essentially.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um, but you know, so it was it was an unorthodox hire.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that's that's the that's what the Penguins decided to do.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um they opened that season in Japan.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: They actually had a a two two-game series, I think it was against Nashville in Japan.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: And and by December of that year, they're 14 and 14, right?
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: So they're pretty much right at the exact same point they had been the previous three seasons.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: Still not, you know, still a contender for the playoffs, but definitely not a Stanley Cup contender, and and still, like we said before, one bad Yager injury away from the whole thing tanking.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: So as that's happening, meanwhile, Mario Lemieux is secretly working out with his old friend Jay Caulfield over at Neville Island.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: I remember this, yeah.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and you know, unbeknownst to everybody.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: And and Mario at some point decides he he wants to come back, but he's not sure at first.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: He wants to see if he can really do it.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: And he says later he he does not want to come back to be mediocre.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he didn't want to come back to to be uh some of those other guys we talked about earlier, where they just okay, they're still effective, but they're not great anymore.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not what Mario wanted to be.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: He wanted to be great still.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um and there's a great story, Tom McMillan, who who the VP of communications for the Penguins tells this great story about how Mario pulled him and Tom Rooney into his office.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: Tom Rooney was the COO at the time, and he's and he like said very dramatically, guys, I'm going in a different direction.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: And Tom McMillan's like, oh no, I'm he's firing us, he's selling the team, like what's going on?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then he and then he pauses and he says, I'm coming back.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: And Tom Rooney's like, like, is a player?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like, nobody like nobody, everybody was just totally caught off guard by that.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Ron Burkle, who who is the co-owner with Mario, you know, he tells Ron Burkle, and and Burkle's first question is, like, okay, so we have to pay you.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: What are we gonna pay you?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: And and Mario um decides he's only gonna take league average, and and he's only gonna prorate it for the time he plays.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_03: So it really ticked off the union, I remember at the time.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: It did tick off the union.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: This is in the non-salary cap era.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: So right, right, because at the time you could drive salaries as high as possible.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: So um that that you know, their complaint was that would hurt other players, but whatever.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um I guess too, because he's an owner, it is kind of a conflict of interest.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_03: You do have a point there because he would want to keep salaries low, and by doing that, uh, whatever.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, how many player owners are there in the league anyway?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, kind of in a unique situation.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: It was.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: So finally the announcement is made public.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, when Mario um has a press conference, he talks a lot about his son Austin.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Austin was a baby when Mario retired.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: And um he's he talked about how Austin once asked like the Penguins Equipment Guy, hey, was my dad like was my dad good?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, and the the equipment guy probably was like, uh let me show you some let me show you some clips.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um but but Austin had never really gotten to see him play.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so the announcement is made, and Steve, I don't know if you remember this.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I just the whole town was on fire.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was just on fire.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: The the Steelers were having uh kind of a mediocre season that year, and their season was coming to an end, and then this announcement comes out, and everybody just is like beside themselves.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was it was pretty hype.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_03: I just remember like Jay Caulfield was like getting like like ambushed reporter like outside his home, like, what's Mario?
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_03: Is Mario any good?
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_03: You know Yeah.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_03: Which is a day, I mean that's a dangerous proposition with Jay Caulfield.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_03: You might lose.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I don't know what his penalty minutes in the NHL were, but I'm sure they were more than a couple.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: So December 27th uh of 2000 is Mario's first game back.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's a home game against Toronto.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: And uh Mark Madden, the the longtime uh talk show host, he calls it the most memorable moment in Penguin's history.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: Stan Savern, another longtime Pittsburgh sports guy, he calls it the greatest story he's ever covered in 40 plus years as uh in Pittsburgh.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so the so it's a it's a huge night.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: They lower the the his number down from the rafters, and 33 seconds into the game, Mario assists on a goal by Jagger.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: So right off the bat um he's he's got his uh first point.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then in the second period, the the roof just comes off the Civic Arena when this happens.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yager turns around.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: Over to Lemieux.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_02: Mario Lemieux is first goal.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_02: It is comeback here tonight at the Millen Arena.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: And the Penguins lead three to nothing, and he is smiling like a butcher's dog.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_02: Mario Lemieux.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_03: Da da da da da.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_03: Hey.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not sure if that was their goal song still.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: It may as well have been.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it was it was it was like like old times again.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: And and so Mario's first game goes well, but but it just carries forward from there.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: And something really remarkable happens, which is that that Mario the Mew comes back and basically picks up right where he left off, being being one of the best players in hockey, if not the best player in hockey.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um the that regular season, I uh I'm just I just picked out a couple of highlight games from that season.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh January 24th, he has a hat trick against Montreal.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's a great story about how the next morning he he goes to a staff meeting because you know he's still the owner.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: And uh his executive assistant is like, oh, good night last night, boss.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: In mid-February, the Penguins have a home and home series against Minnesota.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: The Wild were an expansion team that year, and they had hired Jacques Lemaire to be their head coach.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: And and Jacques Lemaire, of course, was the guy that coached the Devils in the 90s and had basically invented that that clutch and grab trap uh style of hockey that Mario detested so much.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a home and home series, and the wild win the first game playing that Jacques Lamaire style of hockey, and Mario was uh pretty upset about it, and he and Joc Lamaire exchanged some words uh after the game.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um probably words we can't repeat.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and maybe they were in French.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe still can't repeat them.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: In the second game uh of that of that home and home, the Wild are again suffocating the Penguin skaters.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: They have a one-to-nothing lead with 13 minutes left.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: So they're gonna this expansion team, they're gonna sweep the penguins in this two-game series, just totally shutting down all their offense.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Mario decides, and and I just emphasize that word decides because that's what Mario could do at times.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'm not gonna allow this expansion team to beat me two games in a row.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: He scores a coast-to-coast goal to tie the game while being hooked, and then minutes later he scores another goal to win the game.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: So just vintage Mario deciding he was gonna win a game all by himself, he could still do that.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh on March 14th, there's a great um, we'll post this clip on our website.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: There's a great clip where he just blows past the Dano Chara on a breakaway, um, just totally outmaneuvers him.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: So uh Mario is just lighting things up.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: He calls it, quote, the best time of my life.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not only good for Mario and the Penguins, it's good for the league.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Mario makes the cover of Sports Illustrated in March, and that was when making the cover of Sports Illustrated still meant something, like that's significant.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I mean I'm not bashing Sports Illustrated, I'm just saying, you know, print magazine, like that was still a big deal back then, right?
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like I I just don't think that that's that you had the the the cover curse and it was significant, and Sports Illustrated didn't cover hockey all that much, and they didn't put hockey on the cover all that much.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: So to put Mario on the cover was huge.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um almost every road game that year was a sellout.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: So even on the road, people were buying tickets to see Mario.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really, really good for the league.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_03: And I mean, you know, I go to down to my local newsstand every day, and me and Fred shoot the breeze about Sports Illustrated.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: And pick up a black and white.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: What are those things called?
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: Newspapers.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, newspaper.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah from the little kid on the corner.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, read all about it.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: So so Lemieux finishes the regular season with just unbelievable stats.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: He has 76 points, despite the fact that he only played in 43 games.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: 76 points in 43 games for a guy that hadn't played hockey for three and a half seasons.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: He leads the league in points per game.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: And he's he's one of three finalists for the heart trophy.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um for the league MVP.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't win.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: That award goes to Joe Sakik.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I have a little bit of a beef with that.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, first of all, let me say Joe Sakick was in his absolute prime in 2001.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: He was a great player.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: He absolutely deserved the heart trophy.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: My beef, so let's go back a few years.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go back to 1989.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: In 1989, Mario Lumihu scored 85 goals.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's 85.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's a number you'll never ever see again.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: He finishes 31 points ahead of Wayne Gretzky in the scoring race, and that was a season where Mario missed games due to injury.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: He still finished 31 points ahead of Gretzky in 85 goals.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: And the team was good in 1989.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: They actually came within one win of the conference finals.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it was another loss to Philadelphia.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: Another loss to Philadelphia.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: I was going to skip over that part.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I think our general manager, our current general manager, might have been involved in that game.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_03: He may have been, yes.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_03: Two tips.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_03: That was that was the a local bar owner.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_03: Either it was our current general manager or a local bar owner, Ken Reggett.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody's yeah, somebody It's a funny that both those guys are in town now.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's fun, it's hilarious.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody chased Robbie Brown all around the ice in that series, but we'll leave that part out.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: So so anyway, so so good team, amazing year for Mario, easy choice for MVP, right?
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: Wayne Gretzky not only wins the MVP award, he receives double the first place votes of Mario Lemieux, even though Mario had 31 more points than him.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: And the and the justification at the time was okay, well, yeah, Mario definitely had the better season, but that was Wayne Gretzky's first season in Los Angeles playing for the Kings, and that had done a lot for the sport, and it did.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like that wasn't an incorrect statement because that really did grow the sport.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: They had Gretzky hosting like Saturday Night Live.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: It was a big deal.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: It definitely did a lot for the sport of hockey, but that was their justification for giving Gretzky the heart trophy that year.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, now in 2001, when Mario Lemieux maybe doesn't have the stats of Joe Sakik, he's done a lot for the sport, but this time that doesn't matter.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like so I I just I just I've always hated that.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: And detecting a theme here.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and and that's you know, and Mario famously said the only the only trophy he cared about was the Art Ross because that went to whoever had the most points and nobody voted on it.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: And and I get and I understand why, because that that was garbage, he didn't win in 1989, and then when he had the same you know, argument going in his favor in 2001, he doesn't win it then either.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: So whatever that you can't do anything about that.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: Again, subjective awards are dumb.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, that's Mario's regular season.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but how's the team doing in general, right?
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so the Penguins do finish the season with a 42, 28, and 9 record.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: That was a big improvement over the 37 and 37 record the previous year.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yagar wins the scoring title for the four straight year.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you don't have to vote on that, do you?
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: No voting necessary.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and really the big difference that year, obviously, besides Lemieux, was the formation of the second line.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: So they put Kovalov, Robert Lang, and Martin Straka on a second line, and and that second line becomes really, really good and really significant.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Kovalov and Straka both finished tied for fourth in the entire league in scoring with 95 points.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then Robert Lang was the center on that line.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: He was also in the top 20.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: So the the second line, the entire second line finishes in the top 20 in the league in scoring, and they were the second line.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: So that was pretty amazing.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: And you had Yager and Lemieux playing on the first line.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Robert Lang, I just remember he would like he always he missed the net a lot, but he had a good year that year.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and he he he was a guy, I think we talked about this in a previous episode too, but when he first played for the Penguins, they had him on a line with Jager, and he tried to force the pat the puck to Yager all the time.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: So he'd either miss the net or he'd like have a wide open net and he'd be like, here, Yarmare, you're you're the guy that usually scores these these cool things, so you take it.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it was super frustrating.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I think getting him off Yager's line was probably the best thing that ever happened to him because um it just yeah, he had a very good season that year.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: So the Penguins, um, the they're also making some deals to load up for the playoffs, and and most of those deals are centered around Lemieux coming back, which isn't surprising.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: They acquire Mark Bergevin, who is a defenseman, who's a veteran, who's Lemie's old buddy from when they played together in junior.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, they also pick up Kevin Stevens.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: So Kevin Stevens, of course, um was on the 91 and 92 teams, one of the the all-time great penguin players.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh his his life had kind of taken a downturn.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh about a year earlier, he had been busted in a motel with a prostitute in crack cocaine and had to go through this court recover mandated recovery program.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: And and then he he signed on with Philadelphia, but he was a healthy scratch most nights.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: And now here he is back playing on a line with Lemieux and Yager, like the old bands back together again.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: So that was that was nice for Kevin Stevens.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and they also traded for Christoph Oliwa, who was this just this mammoth guy, he was six foot five, his nickname was the Polish Hammer.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: And he was he was there like solely to be the enforcer to protect Lemieux.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: So they definitely loaded up around Lemieux in terms of their trade deals.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: The roster that year, we talked about the top two lines um being being so good.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: They had a on defense, they had a decent defensive unit.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like it wasn't terrible, but it certainly wasn't great.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's definitely a defensive defensive unit.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: There's no Larry Murphy's or Chris Latang's on this team.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: If you look at the stats, the leading scorer among defensemen that year was the immortal Hans Janssen.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_03: Did they get defensive about their stats?
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_03: They were very defensive.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_03: They were just defensive about everything.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what we don't score, says you.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: So so yeah, definitely a stay-at-home defense that they had.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um the leader of the defense was was definitely Darius Casparetis, who was a huge fan favorite.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: Caspar had he had been a thorn in the penguin side when he played for the Islanders.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: And they when they acquire him in 1996, he just he very quickly becomes one of the most, I would say one of the most beloved players in Penguin's history.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Darius Casparitas was just beloved when he played here.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: And he really cements his his legend status in Pittsburgh in a game on March 7, 1998, when he absolutely crushes Eric Lindros near the boards in a game against the Flyers.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um Lindross was a beast of a player.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: He was 6'4, 240.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: Casparitas was 5'11, but you know, Casparitas didn't care.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't care.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: He was still going to hit Lindras.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, Lindras was a guy we all just hated.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he was he came into the league as this anointed uh superstar.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: He he finangled his way out of Quebec.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, he he the the Flyers back then had this line called the The Legion of Doom, and it was just him and John Leclerc, and and they just would stand in front of the net and overpower everybody.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: And to see him just get his clock clean was just so satisfying.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: And Caspar Hurtis was the one that did it.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was kind of a turning point in Lindurus' career.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: It was uh the first of several concussions that ultimately ultimately did kind of derail his Hall of Fame career.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was uh guess back before they took concussions seriously.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: So the Penguins have the they have these amazing top two lines, they have adequate defensemen, and and they've gotten some additional pieces via the trade, so they're all set for a long playoff run, right?
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the one glaring weakness was still in the net.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um goaltending had been an issue for for several years.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's the reason they had gone out and picked up Ron Tugnut the year before.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: And and that Sports Illustrated article, the the one that that was on the cover, I mean, I went back and read that article.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's a glowing article.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: It just talks all about how Mario's return uh is a great story and how it's lighting up the league.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then at the very end of the article, it's like, I mean, this is such a great story.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, there's no way the penguins are going to do anything in the postseason because they don't have a goaltender, but but still a great story.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's the way the article ends.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what?
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they were right.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because um the the main goaltender for the penguins that year, the number one goaltender was John was John Sebastian Aub.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: He was a guy that the Penguins had drafted in the third round in '96 to be the successor to Barrasso.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: And he has a 3.3 goals against that year.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: That stinks.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: 3.3 goals against average.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: And and even worse was he had before the season, he had demanded a higher salary.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that really ticked off Lemieux.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Lemieux actually came out publicly and said, like, this guy's not a number one goaltender until he earns it.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so J.S.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: Auban is not good at hockey and not good at negotiating his contracts.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_03: I I think, yeah, that's definitely um I I don't I don't remember him much.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_03: I remember Garth Snow, you're gonna mention here more than Auburn.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Gar Snow was the backup.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: And and Gar Snow was just Gar Snow.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: He was a veteran, he was a journeyman.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: He was he was a perfect he was perfect in his role, which was a backup.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um but they really needed like a number one goaltender to go into the playoffs.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_03: Kind of like who was that guy that they had Vocun or Grice, like kind of like one of those guys, like a solid guy, but not yeah, maybe a great goaltender.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_03: And plus you gotta remember.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: This is the crut clutch and grab era when goals were going, scoring was going down.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_03: That's a good point.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_03: So to have a three, yeah, that's that's really not good.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: In that era, yeah, that's terrible.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's that's just terrible.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so late in the season, Patrick goes out and he picks up a young goaltender by the name of Johan Hedberg.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: Johann Hedberg had never played a game in the National Hockey League.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: And when the Penguins acquire him, he's playing for a team called the Manitoba Moose.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: Ice alliteration, yeah.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yeah.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_03: See what they did there.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_03: There's not much else you could name a team from Manitoba.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe the mouse or something.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_03: Or you could smell moose like the ice, like the dessert or something.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_03: Marauders.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: We can think of some good names, but Moose Moose is appropriate for a team that far north.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and and you know, they the the story goes that they're actually at the Winnipeg International Airport.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: I guess the moose were getting ready to to travel to take on some other team.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: And they actually pull aside Headburg, and they're like, hey, uh you know how we're all getting on this plane to to you know wherever uh Saskatchewan.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: Oh they're taking the moose balloon.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know how we're all getting on this plane to Saskatchewan?
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you're going on this plane over here to Pittsburgh.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it it it all happens very quickly.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: And and when he gets to Pittsburgh, the Penguins just start throw him in as a starter.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like, hey guy that's never played a game before, you're gonna start because I guess they figured they had nothing to lose.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: And and it all happens so quickly that Hedberg has to wear his like blue Manitoba moose mask for his first start.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't have time to get like a proper penguins goaltender mask.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and it looks super out of place, like this blue mask with a big moose painted on it against this black and gold uniform.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_01: But he wins that first start and then proceeds to go seven, one, and one.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: And he keeps wearing the the mask because hockey players are superstitious.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and and so the fans nickname him the moose.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: And whenever he makes a save, they can't moose.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and it really becomes like a a sensation in Pittsburgh.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like he just instantly becomes a sensation.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the the Heidelberg sign on uh on 79 South, somebody vandalizes it and changes to the Hedberg exit instead of the Heidelberg exit.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and so now all of a sudden, at the very end of the season, this kid comes in and he really stabilizes the the goaltender job.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and even though he's only started nine NHL games, he's now the starter heading into the playoffs.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_01: So so the Penguins go into the postseason, again, they're a lower seed, um, like they were the previous two years, and no one's really sure what to what's going to happen at this point.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um is it gonna is it gonna be different than the last two seasons?
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so the first round, of course, is the Washington Capitals, because that's the that's the traditional matchup, it seems like every year in the playoffs.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: And and the Penguins take a two-to-one series lead in that in that series against Washington.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think everybody kind of saw, okay, the Penguins are the better team.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_01: This is probably going to be a short series.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, game four is in Pittsburgh, and it goes into overtime, and once again, the Penguins lose a home overtime playoff game, and Jeff Halpern scores for overtime, and and the Capitals even the series at two.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: And this has just become such a dagger for the Penguins.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's like you just you're in this position where you have one goal.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_01: One goal is going to make a difference, and every time the other team gets that gets that goal.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the Penguins come they win game five, and now game six is again back in Pittsburgh.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_01: And again, game six goes into overtime.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: So here we are again, a home overtime game with the Penguins having a chance to uh to win the series.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: So this time things turn out a little bit differently.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh in overtime, there's a sequence where uh the Sergei Gontar, the defenseman for Washington, who of course later goes on to win a Stanley Cup for the Penguins, he has the puck behind his net.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of those things where he's he's kind of stuffed behind the net and everybody makes their line changes, you know.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so he has the puck from um behind the net and he's he starts to skate out with the puck.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: And Martin Straka comes up and challenges him uh in inside of his zone, and that happens a lot too, and and usually when that happens, you know, the the defenseman will just make a pass and get it out of danger.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, for whatever reason, Gonchar, for for lack of a better word, Gonchar basically like fumbles the puck and it ends up right on Straka's stick, and now Strach is one-on-one with the the defending Vesina trophy winner Olaf Kolvik.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_02: Here comes Stracker with a chance against Colding.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_02: He back if he shoots it.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_02: Barney Stracker wins it in overtime for the Penguins.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_02: And ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has just left the building.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_02: Penguins win the series four games to two.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_03: I forgot Olaf Koldzick was a uh trophy winner.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_03: He was.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_03: They seem to like always own him for some reason.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like Well, they own they own they own whoever played for the Capitals.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean you know.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that was really the trend.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I we we have to do an episode, Steve, at some point about like the Capitals Penguins rivalry because it's just not much, it's not much of a rivalry.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, the Capitals got us once.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_03: I mean Yeah, fair.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_03: Fair.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_03: But it'll be fun to do.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_03: Fun to like make fun of the Capitals, especially like Pittsburgh sports.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's a Pittsburgh podcast, so who k who cares if it's one side?
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's one side in our favor.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, he beats Olaf Kolzak.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_01: The Penguins finally break the curse of overtime, and uh and Martin Stracker wins the series.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so the second line comes through and uh and gets the goal that wins the series.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh uh Hedberg had played really well in that series as well.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then Mario Lemieux, he led everybody in the series with seven points.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: So once again, Mario's right back on top.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: In the second round, the Penguins play the Buffalo Sabres, and Buffalo was a really good team during this era.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um they had they had won the Eastern Conference in 1999 and had come within a controversial goal of winning the Stanley Cup.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_01: They had, Steve mentioned this guy earlier, they had the best goaltender of the era and maybe the best goaltender of all time in Dominic Hawkick.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: In 2001, Hachick wins his sixth Vesina trophy since 1994.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're doing the math, that's six Vezina trophies in eight years for Dominic Haushik.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's a level of dominance that you might not ever see again.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and you know what?
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I guess we'll save that for the end.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_03: I have a comment that I but I I love uh Dominic Hossack was definitely I liked him like I know everybody was always worshipped like Brodeur, but I always like Hossick better.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_03: I thought he was just in general, I guess just more athletic and Wall, I liked Wall better too.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_03: I never I don't know, I just never I I I thought Brodeur benefited from the trap, so but and the penguins like you said, really besides like Hedberg really until Flurry came, they really didn't have like a great goaltender from Barrasso to Flurry.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_03: I mean so nobody nobody locally to fill in, I guess, the the spot.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_03: I know the the penguins had played Hausick too, what earlier in '92 than actually if you go back to Chicago, yeah.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, if you go back and watch that game where the penguins clinched, like that game, they they could have had like eight goals.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_03: Like Hausick really kept Chicago in the game.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and and it's funny because you mentioned, Steve, like some of the other goaltenders of that era, like Brodor and Patrick Waugh, and even Kolzick who had won the Vesna the year before.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, him winning six six out of eight years for the best goaltender in the league, it wasn't like there was no other good goaltenders.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like there were Hall of Fame goaltenders, but he was still the best.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I I think you could make the argument that he was the best of all time.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: And him going against, to your point, a rookie goaltender definitely felt like a mismatch.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: But right out of the gate, it's actually Hedberg who who comes through.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: He shuts out the Sabres in game one, and that's at Buffalo, and then in game two, also at Buffalo, Hedberg only allows one goal and a three to one Penguins win.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_01: So now the Penguins are at the same place they had been the previous two two years.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the previous year, up two games to nothing, and coming back to Pittsburgh for games three and games four.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the previous year against Philly, like we said, they lost both those games in overtime.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: And this year, they did not lose both of those games in overtime.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_01: They just lost them both in regulation.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's a switch.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you know, they're they're moving up.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_01: And and really what happened was um Hawkshik kind of woke up, and and Hoshik and the Sabres defense really shuts down the Penguins' high-scoring offense.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: They manage only three total goals in those two games, and so now the series is tied two games apiece, and that sets up a pivotal game five in Buffalo.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_01: And in that game, the Penguins offense finally gets going again.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, Jager and Alexei Morozov propelled the Penguins to a two-nothing lead in that game.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_01: Alexei Morozov.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's a little bust in the past, yes.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_03: I he might I think he just retired from the KHL.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_03: He went and played in the KHL for years.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_01: He was he was another guy that had talent and just it was never really realized.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um he was a high draft pick, too.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and and he could there were times where he looked like he could be one of the best players in hockey, uh, but that was a small percentage of the time.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: So so the penguins are up two to nothing in that game five.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_01: They finally seem like they have their scoring mojo back, but they allow the sabres to come back.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_01: The sabres score twice in force overtime, and then 834 into the overtime, former Penguin Stu Barnes for the Sabres, he blasts a shot past Hedberg, and the Sabres win the game.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that hurt, you know, not only going down three games to two in the series, but Stu Barnes, he he had kind of been unceremoniously traded two years earlier for Matthew Barnaby.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um Stu Barnes was a a pretty good goal scorer.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, Jager even said at the time that Barnes was, quote, the best goal scorer on the team, uh, which is high praise coming from the guy that had just won the last four scoring titles.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but the penguins felt like they needed um that agitator role, and that was what Barnaby was.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a little bit of sweet revenge for Stu Barnes.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_01: So now the Penguins are on the brink of elimination, and game six is back in Pittsburgh.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_01: And once again, the the Sabres really stymie the Penguins' top two lines.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the Penguins trail two to one heading into the third period, and they do get a break with two power play chances.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_01: Usually third period playoff hockey, the wrestlers referees swallow their whistles, and they have to give the penguins two power plays, but they can't do anything on either one.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so now like we're we're down to just over a minute left.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like the seconds are ticking away on the season, and it's it's kind of a moment because here we are, right, after all that's happened.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_01: Mario Lemieux, the greatest player in franchise history and the owner of the team, comes back.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh this this rookie goaltender, the moose, who had never played in the league before, uh the the second line evolved into this great scoring line.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_01: All this stuff had happened from one year earlier.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_01: And now the Penguins are about to go out in the exact same way they had the previous year, losing four games in a row in the second round after winning the first two.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it it just it was hard to believe that like that's was that really the way the season was going to end?
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, one guy that wasn't gonna about wasn't about to let it end that way was Mario Lemieux.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_01: So uh again, just over a minute left, there's a face-off in the Saber's end, and Mario wins the face-off, and the puck eventually comes back to Kovalev at the point, and he he blasts a slap shot, and the puck's blocked.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_01: And and when it's blocked, it actually pops straight up into the air.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost like a pop-up in baseball, like an infield uh pop-up.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_01: It goes just real high into the air, and it starts coming down very close to the net, and there's a bunch of guys for both teams standing near the net where where the puck is falling, and they're all kind of trying to swat at it.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_01: And Mario Lemie is one of those guys, and being the veteran and the legend that he is, he's he's not frantically trying to swat at it.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_01: He's just slowly tracking it with his eyes.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_01: And when the puck lands on the ice, he's the first one to get the stick on it, and he shoots it past Hoshik for the game tying and series saving goal at 1842 of the third period.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a typical dramatic Mario Lemu moment.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_01: The team's about to be eliminated, and he scores the goal to send the game into overtime.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_01: So now we have another home overtime game.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_01: So once again, potentially back to where we were the last two years, going out in six games uh due to overtime losses.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um but again the the Penguins write a different story, and fittingly, it's the second line who wins the game.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and and this is really a team effort with the second line because uh Robert Lange um checks one of the uh sabres players behind their net and he steals the puck and he shovels it over to Kovalov on the boards, and Kovalov very quickly centers it.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a bang bang bang play.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_01: Kovala centers it for Straka, Straka puts puts it in front of it, puts it in the net, and it's the game winner.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just an unbelievable win because the penguins, here they were really losing for four straight games until that last minute of regulation.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_01: They were they were seemingly done.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_01: And now they they tied the game, send in overtime, and then win the game in overtime to force a game seven.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_01: So that was pretty miraculous, but there's they didn't win the series.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_01: There's still a game seven, and the game seven is in Buffalo.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it was a typical game seven, you know, tight, everyone playing with their season on the line.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um Hawik and Hedberg had both made some big saves in the first period.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_01: In the second period, Buffalo gets the first goal, uh, but the pens even it up on a power play goal by Andrew Ference.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_01: Andrew Ferenc.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_01: Another blast from the past.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_01: He went on to have a pretty good career after the Penguins.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_01: He was a good young player that year.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um in the third period, Buffalo again takes the lead, but Robert Lang gets the equalizer.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a back and forth game, and as the minutes tick away, it looks like we're headed to our third straight overtime game in the series, and this is going to be to decide everything.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_01: But but before overtime, real late in the third period, there's some controversy.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_01: So with just about a minute left in regulation, the Sabres are pressing in the Penguins end of the ice, and the Penguins can't get the puck out.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like they're in trouble.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um the Sabres have a legitimate chance to win the game here at the end of regulation.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the defensemen who's back on his heels is Darius Gasparitas.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_01: And at one point, the puck hits Gasparitis in the chest, and he literally gloves the puck and flings it into the stands.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_01: He saw he saw a fan that really wanted a souvenir.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_01: A little kid.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he was he was wanting to fulfill a wish, you know.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the fans in Buffalo just go ballistic.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I'm gonna try to not be a homer here and be objective.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_01: The the the fans in Buffalo were were right to go ballistic.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's a that's a delay of game penalty.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like you can't when you're getting pressured and you take the puck and you throw it into the crowd, that's a delay of game penalty.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_03: And in fact, last week actually threw the puck in the crowd.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_01: I we'll we'll post a link to that play.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can you can judge for yourself, but I I it's a time I thought that, and 20 years later I watched it again, and I still think it.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like he took the puck in his glove and he just threw it into the crowd because that was the best way to just get a face off and and kill the scoring chance, which it did.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_01: And and a few years later, the NHL would make a role that because back then that it was based on intent, and then they got they did away with that role.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_01: They said anytime that you're in your own end and you knock the puck into the crowd, even it's even if it's on a shot with your stick, um, it's an automatic delay of game penalty.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_01: And and remember that famously came back uh to to haunt the penguins in the in the playoffs against the Capitals years later.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: And and and it was an automatic penalty.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_01: But in 2001, that wasn't an automatic penalty.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_01: The referee had to determine that you did it on purpose, and for some reason, I don't know why, they decided that it was somehow an accident that he put the puck in his glove and chucked it into the crowd.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_01: So that was a big break for the penguins there.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_01: No penalty is called.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_01: And now we're heading to the city.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's probably the most casparitist thing you could do, too.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and I'm surprised it's not more remembered given how this game's gonna end.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because, yeah, that that was pr that was pretty pretty bad.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_01: So now we're heading into overtime, and it's game seven overtime for the right to go to the Eastern Conference Finals.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the Penguins actually get a lot of really good scoring chances to start the overtime, but Hawksik is just stopping everything.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_01: There's one play in particular where Kovalev uh he he tries to center a pass for Lemuel like all by himself on the side of the net.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_01: And Hosik makes a great play, dives on the pass before it can get to Mario.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_01: And Mario, who like I don't know that he always showed a ton of emotion on the ice.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_01: He just he was visibly like like flustered.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_01: He just looks up at the sky, he can't believe he was gonna win the game and win the series right there, and Hosik stole it away from him.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_01: So the the Penguins had all these good chances, and as the overtime wore on, that that's a bad omen.
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_01: You don't get a whole lot of scoring chances in a game seven overtime, you know?
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_01: That it's just not doesn't happen.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so it just kind of felt like the penguins skill players had spent all their chances, and now anything could happen.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, 13 minutes into the overtime, the penguins do get one more chance.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_01: Now Robert Lang skates into the Buffalo zone, and there's a defenseman right in front of him.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_01: He's got Martin Straka to his left, but Straka has the other Buffalo defenseman draped all over him.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_01: So Lang really only has one choice, and that's to drop it back to the defenseman who's trailing on the play.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that defenseman is Arius Casparatus.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_02: He's gonna have to remember.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_02: Here's Cannes Romitas.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_02: Whistling once his shoots and cards.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_02: The Pittsburgh Penguins have won the series in overtime.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_02: Darius Casparitas.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_02: And ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has just left the building.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it's Darius Casparitas that gets the goal.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_01: Steve, it I it's the single most improbable moment in Pittsburgh sports history.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_01: I I really think that I can make a good argument for that.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Casparitas played 443 games in a penguin's uniform, that's including playoffs.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so in that time, he scored 17 goals.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_01: In almost 450 games as a penguin, he scored 17 goals.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_01: Darius Casparitas did not score goals, much less beating the greatest goaltender of all time in game seven over time to send them to the conference finals.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I like I it'd be like the Steelers being in the AFC championship game, and Chris Boswell throws the game-winning touchdown pass.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_03: I yeah, uh it was I don't even know how to describe the shot, too.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_03: It was like this weak backhanded shot that just it was lucky, it was very lucky.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_03: I mean uh it just snuck past uh Hosick somehow, and the Penguins were moving on.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, maybe it's just because it's Buffalo and they don't seem to get very many breaks, but yeah.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_01: It it it was amazing, and that's that's sometimes how games like that end, right?
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Mario Lemieux and Alexei Kovilev and all the guys that should have um been the hero, you know, it ends up being Darius Casparitas against Dominic Haushak.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and again, I just I can't think of any more I can't think of any moment in Pittsburgh sports history that was just that unlikely.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh if you want if you want to know, we talked about um Casparitis kind of being just beloved by the fans.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to know why Casparitas was was so beloved here in Pittsburgh, um this is an interview that Stan Savron did on the ice with him moments after he scored the goal.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_00: Is is this the the best moment of your hockey career so far?
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I I I don't realize I scored a goal.
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_00: I honestly I don't know what happened.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_00: I just I just put it in, but it just kinda I'm feeling uh fog, you know.
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I just joined the Russian uh thing, I didn't even know who passed to me, I just put a puck on the net and uh I own Domini Hashik because I scored one against him before.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_00: You own him Yeah.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_01: Sure you do, Darius.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like by far the biggest moment of his hockey career.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was just like, yeah, I own that guy.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm sure you do.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_01: That that again, that's why that's you that's why you couldn't help but just love Darius Casparatus.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I just I had to throw that in there because I just loved that interview.
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_03: I think that was said with heavy sarcasm, but uh it was.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_01: I you know he was yeah, he's he's being he's being funny.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_01: But apparently one of his 17, one of his other 16 goals that he scored in a Penguin apparently happened against Hashik.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_01: So that that moment is one of my favorite in Pittsburgh sports history, and it's it's personal to me.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um I watched that game.
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I I was uh on vacation with some friends in North Carolina.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_01: We were staying at this beach house.
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um we decided to rent this big house on the beach, and it had like eight or nine bedrooms.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so um we we had asked a bunch of our friends to come with us, and we said we said, okay, and ask your friends.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we just wanted to fill up this house with people to help defray the cost of the house.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_01: Steve, I think we even invited you.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's like how desperate we were to just fill this house up with people.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like, my God, we'll even take Steve if we have to.
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_01: You turned us down though, unfortunately.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_01: I was one apparently the many other people.
• 1:07:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, well, one of the people that came, one of the friends of a friend who I didn't really know that well, um, was this girl, and she was just this beautiful, like smart girl.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I got to know her during the week a little bit more, and I I just I really fell for her.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I I kind of thought, like, maybe she's into me too.
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_01: And we but we hadn't like again, we were there's a bunch of people staying at this house.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_01: We hadn't had any like one-on-one time together, and and that game was on a Thursday night, and that was that was the end of the week.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_01: We were heading back back home after that, and so I don't remember how this happened.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_01: I don't remember if I asked her or she asked me, but somehow we agreed that after the hockey game, because the whole house is gonna be watching game seven together, after the game, we were gonna go do like a little walk on the beach, a little date.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's the two of us.
• 1:08:04
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and so that was gonna be after the game.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the game goes into overtime, and now I'm stuck in the scenario where where three things can happen, and two of them are really bad.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, one is that Buffalo gets the the overtime goal, and then I know I'm gonna be in a terrible mood, I'm gonna be disappointed and sad and angry.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's one thing to lose a game seven, but to lose a game seven in overtime, it's it's gonna be one of the worst moments in the history of you as a fan of that team.
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not gonna be in a good state of mind.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the other possibility, because we had seen this a year before with the five overtime game, right?
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_01: Is that the game just goes on forever and ever.
• 1:08:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I I kind of knew at the time, like this girl's not gonna stay up till 2.30 in the morning or whatever that Philadelphia game ended just to go on a walk on the beach with me.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_01: She was just gonna go to bed.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and then the third possibility, which is what happened, was the penguin scored and and won the game.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_01: And and so I'm in a really good state of mind.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_01: And we go out on the beach, and I I tell her that I I like her, and she reciprocates.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_01: And to make a long story short, we'll be celebrating our 17th wedding anniversary later this year.
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you can thank uh Darius Gasparetis for that.
• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, Darius Gasparetis saved my marriage before it even began.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you, Darius Gasparetis.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_01: Wherever you are, wherever you are.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that sets up the the Penguins are in the conference finals, and the opponent there is the New Jersey Devils.
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_01: And the Devils are really the powerhouse team of this era.
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_01: They're the defending Stanley Cup champions.
• 1:09:37
  SPEAKER_01: And when it's all said and done, they'll have end up end up winning three Stanley Cups.
• 1:09:41
  SPEAKER_01: So the Penguins are a huge underdog.
• 1:09:43
  SPEAKER_01: They had upset New Jersey two years earlier, like we talked about, and that was without Mario Lemieux.
• 1:09:48
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe they could do it again.
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_01: And in the first two games, the Devils take game one, the Penguins take game two.
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just it's looking like it's going to be this like good competitive series.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_01: And if the Penguins can just hang in there till the end like they did against Buffalo, maybe they could pull it off.
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_01: But then Jersey just completely shuts the door and the Penguins scores.
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_01: The Devils shot off the Penguins in game three, and they shot off the Penguins again in game four.
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Hedberg also kind of comes back to earth.
• 1:10:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he struggles with the Devils.
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_01: He only has an 87% save percentage in the series.
• 1:10:21
  SPEAKER_01: Hedberg just, you know, he had he had bested a Vesina trophy winner in Kulzig, he had bested a Vesina trophy winner in Hoshik.
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_01: He wasn't gonna he wasn't gonna best Marty Burdore, he wasn't gonna do it three times in a row.
• 1:10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Depends put up a little bit more of a fight in game five, but Jersey wins that one too to take the series and it ends the penguin season.
• 1:10:43
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's a disappointing end.
• 1:10:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know the the the two best teams in the league that year were for sure the Devils and the Colorado Avalanche, and they would they would play a seven-game series for the Stanley Cup that that's ultimately won by the Avalanche.
• 1:10:57
  SPEAKER_01: The Penguins were not on the same level as those two teams.
• 1:11:01
  SPEAKER_01: But they were just they were writing this amazing storyline of Mario Lemie coming back, and and we all, you know, Steve, we know that it's not always the team that was the best team all year that wins the championship, right?
• 1:11:12
  SPEAKER_01: So the it just felt like the penguins were gonna have this like storybook run.
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, Mario Lemie, it was just gonna be this this memorable thing where he came back and won them a championship, but it wasn't meant to be.
• 1:11:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's a shame.
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_03: Um they just like I I think the trap eventually just you know they did the penguins never really played that style of play, and that's what became in vogue for many years.
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_03: And they had that that extra line, like you couldn't do the two-line pass, so that really helped, you know.
• 1:11:47
  SPEAKER_03: So everything like was stuck between, you know, your own that that that blue line and the center red, you know, if they keep you in there, it was like almost impossible.
• 1:11:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you wonder had had they implemented the roles that they implemented post-lockout, had they implemented that five years earlier, it would have been a different story for the penguins.
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_01: And the salary cap too.
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, there was no salary cap either at that point, so which doesn't explain why Toronto didn't win a Stanley Cup and all that silliness.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you got money to burn.
• 1:12:20
  unknown: I don't know.
• 1:12:22
  SPEAKER_01: So the the yeah, so the the the salary cap, the financial woes, that really sinks the penguins after this.
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's just too much to overcome.
• 1:12:32
  SPEAKER_01: And Patrick is forced to just gut the team at that point.
• 1:12:35
  SPEAKER_01: And and it starts that summer with the trade of Yager to the to the Capitals, um which they got like nothing in return.
• 1:12:44
  SPEAKER_01: They got Chris Beach and I don't remember who the other guys were.
• 1:12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that was a disaster.
• 1:12:48
  SPEAKER_01: And Yager, like that was tough because it was almost a little bit of a relief.
• 1:12:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was it was somewhat similar to when the Steelers traded Antonio Brown.
• 1:12:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like you you knew it was gonna make the team worse, but it was like you could breathe a little easier knowing that that this guy that was so um discontent was off the team.
• 1:13:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think the last straw really was when he clashed with Talenka, who was spot brought there specifically to be his coach.
• 1:13:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but but it did make the team a lot worse.
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Yargo was their best player.
• 1:13:19
  SPEAKER_01: He's gone.
• 1:13:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Lang and Kovlev are eventually gone.
• 1:13:23
  SPEAKER_01: And what follows are some very, very, to say it nicely, lean years for the Penguins, where they're one of the NHL's just absolute worst franchises.
• 1:13:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Halenka comes back the next season and has fired four games into the 2002 season.
• 1:13:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he he barely communicated with the players that weren't from the Czech Republic.
• 1:13:44
  SPEAKER_01: And the Penguins said, Okay, we get that, but over the summer you need to take some English lessons.
• 1:13:51
  SPEAKER_01: And Halenka's just like, nah, or or nay, or whatever you say it in the tech.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um or maybe he just didn't understand what they were asking him.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Either way, he doesn't learn English.
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh when he's fired, um, one player comes out and says uh it was total chaos with him behind the bench.
• 1:14:08
  SPEAKER_01: He said, quote, by the time Halenka figures out what to say on line changes, it's too late.
• 1:14:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's already time to say something else.
• 1:14:15
  SPEAKER_01: So he was terrible at managing lines and terrible at the in-game coaching.
• 1:14:19
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, as you mentioned earlier, Steve, he he does tragically pass away a couple years later in a car accident.
• 1:14:25
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the end of the short Ivan Halenka era in Pittsburgh.
• 1:14:29
  SPEAKER_01: Hedberg remains a starter, but he's never never really um able to capture that magic from the 2001 run.
• 1:14:36
  SPEAKER_01: He's eventually supplanted by Marc-Andre Fleury.
• 1:14:39
  SPEAKER_01: And Mario himself, he's also really never able to recapture that magic because all those injuries that have plagued him during his first run really come back full bore after that year.
• 1:14:49
  SPEAKER_01: 2001, his first year back it stayed pretty healthy.
• 1:14:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but after that, it it just goes really south.
• 1:14:56
  SPEAKER_01: In 2002, he only plays in 24 games.
• 1:14:59
  SPEAKER_01: He does play for Team Canada that year, and they they win an Olympic gold.
• 1:15:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of Mario's last big highlight in his career.
• 1:15:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but for the Penguins, he's only able to play 24 games.
• 1:15:10
  SPEAKER_01: In 2003, he actually has um a fairly healthy season that year.
• 1:15:14
  SPEAKER_01: He plays in 67 games and he manages to score 30 goals and finish in the top 15 for the league MVP voting.
• 1:15:21
  SPEAKER_01: And that was on a just a god-awful Penguin team.
• 1:15:24
  SPEAKER_01: So he even even him playing 67 games, he was still a force, um, playing with absolutely no help whatsoever.
• 1:15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he only plays 10 games in 2004, the 2005 seasons canceled due to the lockout, and then he comes back after that and plays 26 games in 2006 with Sidney Crosby on his line.
• 1:15:45
  SPEAKER_01: And the again, the injuries are just too much.
• 1:15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and he kind of quietly retires again.
• 1:15:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um he he makes the announcement, he he had been out of the lineup for a while, but he makes the official announcement that he's retiring as the Steelers are in Detroit preparing for Super Bowl 40.
• 1:16:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I I really think that was by design.
• 1:16:04
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think he wanted himself to be the center of attention, and he knew that the Steelers playing in the Super Bowl was going to overshadow him retiring again.
• 1:16:13
  SPEAKER_01: So he calls it quits, and that's the end of his his second career.
• 1:16:18
  SPEAKER_01: There is a happy ending to the story for both Mario and for us Penguin fans because the team is able to rebuild, and Mario does get to hoist the Stanley Cup three more times as an owner.
• 1:16:29
  SPEAKER_01: That 2001 season, Steve, I think it's a good reminder for me that you know you you think of the great the great seasons in your favorite team's history are the ones where they win championships, and that's that's certainly the case.
• 1:16:42
  SPEAKER_01: But sometimes there are seasons that kind of rank almost at the same level.
• 1:16:48
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, this is one of those seasons.
• 1:16:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's definitely like I would kind of put this up with like we did the uh what was it, the 2016 Pitt football season where Pitt didn't really they didn't even win their bowl game, but between like you said, you know, somebody coming back from an illness or injury, O'Connor and winning some big games.
• 1:17:12
  SPEAKER_03: It kind of felt it feels a lot bigger than like maybe the con I mean making the conference finals is is good, but it's not you know, they didn't even make the Stanley Cup finals that year, so but still like I mean we were comparing him to the other people that came back.
• 1:17:29
  SPEAKER_03: That's a pretty solid comeback.
• 1:17:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I I do remember him playing with Crosby.
• 1:17:33
  SPEAKER_03: That was I I thought he played for more game, more games with Crosby than he did, I guess.
• 1:17:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was only for the first couple months of that of Crosby's rookie season, and then he was he was out again.
• 1:17:47
  SPEAKER_03: I think I went to a game.
• 1:17:49
  SPEAKER_03: I know somebody gave me a ticket, because like back like even Crosby's first year, that was that first year out of the lock it, lockout, when they kind of went for it, and like they still had a remember they had like uh who would they have Ziggy Ziggy Palfy and like John LeClaire and because I remember like going to that game and they were playing they were playing the Rangers.
• 1:18:11
  SPEAKER_03: I remember Kevin Weeks was in goal for the Rangers.
• 1:18:14
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know why I remember that.
• 1:18:15
  SPEAKER_03: And then they had John Leclerc and like Crosby skates around the whole like range because the Rangers had Yager too, because I remember people booing Yawger in that game, and Crosby hits Leclerc with like a perfect pass, and Leclerc just literally falls over zone two skates and can't score.
• 1:18:30
  SPEAKER_03: Which is just like so typical, like the Penguins at that time, they like they signed this Leclerc, who like you had said, that kind of killed us in Philadelphia, and now he comes here and he's just an absolute total bum.
• 1:18:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean Yeah, so so was Zygmunt Paul Fey.
• 1:18:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it it it was interesting when that lockout happened.
• 1:18:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh a lot of guys um retire.
• 1:18:53
  SPEAKER_01: If you go look at the list of guys that retired um during that lockout, it Mark Messier's on there.
• 1:18:57
  SPEAKER_01: There's a bunch of like really big-time players that retired.
• 1:19:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I think some of the guys that decided, you know what, I'm gonna give this one more go, like Mario or John LeClair or Ziggy Palfi, they really didn't have much left in the tank either.
• 1:19:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so it didn't work out for any of those guys.
• 1:19:14
  SPEAKER_01: And and for Mario, I think he just they had drafted Crosby.
• 1:19:18
  SPEAKER_01: It felt like he could make one more run, but the team wasn't very good and his health wasn't there either.
• 1:19:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so he just he had to hang it up at that point.
• 1:19:26
  SPEAKER_03: I think what else hurt the team too was um they had Fleury, right, the year before, and then I think the year before Crosby they drafted Malkin, didn't they?
• 1:19:36
  SPEAKER_03: Right, but they didn't have Malkin.
• 1:19:37
  SPEAKER_03: Malkin, that was the problem was if they would have had Malkin on that team, with Mary, I mean, I guess it would make Mario your third center, but still I I think they would have probably made the playoffs with with, you know, and then they had uh who was their coach was their coach Olcak, Eddie Olchak.
• 1:19:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so they they that team just needed probably, like you said, turned over and get rid of you know some of the veterans and start off with a young team, and that's kind of what they did.
• 1:20:07
  SPEAKER_03: And Terry and did a great job with that team.
• 1:20:09
  SPEAKER_03: So I just I just I distinctly remember that's one of the few penguin games.
• 1:20:14
  SPEAKER_03: Like I haven't gone to a lot of penguin games, but I remember that one.
• 1:20:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I remember I went to another one the year later when Malkin finally made it, and the difference was like like night and day.
• 1:20:25
  SPEAKER_03: It was like you could tell that team was up and coming, whereas that team was just kind of like an also ran.
• 1:20:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I think the penguins still won.
• 1:20:34
  SPEAKER_03: The penguins still beat the Rangers, and the Rangers were a playoff team that year.
• 1:20:38
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I had season tickets that year, that 05-06, and it wasn't a very good year.
• 1:20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but like you said, they made the decision too um to to to to just instead of trying to do one last run with Mario, Mario decides to step aside and and retool.
• 1:20:57
  SPEAKER_01: And they like you said, they do that and they win the Stanley Cup in 09, then they win two more.
• 1:21:02
  SPEAKER_03: So maybe the lesson yeah, lesson for the current team or maybe some other team that's named Steelers, yeah.
• 1:21:10
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes you get to that point where you just gotta like kind of you know cut cut your losses with some of the veterans, you know, when you got two men.
• 1:21:19
  SPEAKER_03: You can have a a one or two on a fill-in on a team that's already established, but to still have so many in key roles that normally comes back to bite you.
• 1:21:27
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 1:21:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, folks, hope you enjoyed that.
• 1:21:31
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• 1:21:36
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• 1:21:38
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• 1:21:45
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, everybody.
• 1:21:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yep, thanks for listening.