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All-Time Pittsburgh Penguins Team


ScottM

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Pittsburgh-Penguins-NHL-Team-Colors-Arch

 

We move on to the first of the 1967 expansion teams. Side note: Flyers fans, you're next. I'm doing these by entry date (I took all of the Original Six together) with the number of Stanley Cups won and then number of Finals appearances as the tiebreaks. I suspect that these next two will get the most attention, and will no doubt be the recipients of the strongest opinions, so maybe I won't be driven out on a rail. Lol. Here goes...

 

First Line: Kevin Stevens, Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr

Second Line: Lowell MacDonald, Sidney Crosby, Jean Pronovost

Third Line: James Neal, Ron Francis, Mark Recchi

Fourth Line: Chris Kunitz, Evgeni Malkin, Alex Kovalev

 

First Defensive Pair: Larry Murphy, Paul Coffey

Second Defensive Pair: Randy Carlyle, Kris Letang

Third Defensive Pair: Sergei Gonchar, Ron Stackhouse

 

Goaltenders: Tom Barrasso, Marc-Andre Fleury, Ken Wregget

 

Coach: Dan Bylsma

 

The easiest parts were choosing the four centers and the top two goalies. Seriously, those were complete no-brainers. There could possibly be some debate on the orders, but almost certainly very little about the selections themselves. The hardest parts were choosing and ranking the right wingers other than Jagr and choosing the third goalie. In the case of the right wingers, there were so many guys that had short tenures with the team and sometimes left and came back that it was pretty difficult to evaluate them side-by-side on only their tenure with the Pens. Wregget ended up getting the last goalie slot based on leading the league in wins in the 1994-95 season.

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Badger Bob Johnston for coach over Blysma, you must be a young guy or something, Blysma couldn't stack Bob's practice pucks.

 

I put Brian Spinner Spencer on that team ahead of Kunitz and Rick Kehoe over Alexi Kovalev. 

tough to argue your choices for defense.

 

Wow the Pens have had some really great players , yet still managed to outright suck for a solid 25 years, amazing.

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Kehoe almost happened. I really debated with myself a lot on that slot.

 

The thing about Johnson is that he only had the one season. It was a great one, of course, but it's such a small sample. I suspect he would have continued to do well, but tragically, we didn't get to find out. As far as Bylsma goes, he also won a Cup and had another conference finals appearance. He also has the best regular season win percentage in franchise history.

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Herb Brooks and Scotty Bowman were great coaches too, just so short term.

Not a bad list. I wouldn't have Kunitz there though. Neal either. Tocchet, Mullen, Kehoe... All arguable additions. Robitaille didn't shine here so much.

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When your fourth best center of all time is Evgeni malkin. A guy who has had one of the best conn smythe seasons of any forward, art ross winner twice, as well as an mvp and lindsay trophy, then you know your team has been blessed with some of the greatest centers to ever play the game.

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