The best of Mario
Dave Molinari offers his first installment of Mario Lemieux’s greatest feats.
This has been, for the better part of two months, a season of giving for the Penguins.
Giving away points in games they should have won.
Giving general manager Jim Rutherford reason to second-guess his decision to keep a roster that won two consecutive Stanley Cups largely intact.
Giving a significant portion of their fan base heartburn, if not heartache.
Considering all of that, it seems like a good time to look back at the 10 most memorable feats – on the ice, anyway – of the guy who has given more than anyone else to this franchise.
Some pretty incredible performances, including a pair of five-goal games, didn’t make the cut, which underscores just how extraordinary Mario Lemieux’s career was.
The list was compiled in consultation with two longtime observers of the club: Tom McMillan, longago Penguins beat writer at the Post-Gazette and current vice president of communications for the team, and Bob Grove, who not only covered the Penguins but has been the foremost statistician/historian of the franchise for many years.
Most of the feats that will be mentioned were agreed upon, although the order in which they should be ranked – after those at the very top, anyway – wasn’t always so. Decisions on that (and all other points of contention) were made by the guy with the byline.
10 It wasn’t so much a welcome to the league as it was a warning to it. In his first game with the Penguins, Lemieux – on his first professional shift – stole the puck from Boston defenseman Raymond Bourque at the right point in the Penguins’ end at Boston Garden. Yes, that would be the same Ray Bourque who finished his Hall-of-Fame career with five Norris trophies. Lemieux carried it down the left side of the ice then cut to the Boston net and, after deking Bruins goalie Pete Peeters, pulled the puck onto his backhand and flipped it into the net at 2:59 of the opening period. It was his first NHL shot. Boston would rally for a 4-3 victory – and Bourque would get a measure of revenge by scoring the game-winning goal in the third period – but the hockey world had been shown that the hype surrounding Lemieux’s arrival was warranted. Maybe even understated.
9 A few sporting accomplishments – Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game in the NBA, for example, or Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak – are unlikely ever to be matched. The 16,025 fans who turned out at the Civic Arena on New Year’s Eve, 1988 witnessed one of those, as Lemieux became the only NHL player, to this point, to score five goals, five ways. He started with an even-strength goal against New Jersey goalie Bob Sauve, then scored on the power play and while short-handed before the first period ended. He added a penalty-shot goal (which also was short-handed) in the second, then capped the Penguins’ 8-6 victory by hitting an empty net. Time appeared to expire just before his final shot crossed the goal line, but the goal counted and history was made. One oft-overlooked detail: Lemieux also assisted on the Penguins’ other three goals, by Rob Brown, Dan Quinn and Phil Bourque.
8 Lemieux won two Stanley Cups and an Olympic gold medal, but his first championship as a pro came well before any of those, as he helped lead Canada to victory in the 1987 Canada Cup tournament. Lemieux scored 11 times during that competition – he was the only player on any of the six competing clubs to get more than seven goals – including the tournament-winner. With 1:26 remaining in Game 3 of a three-game final against the Soviet Union, Lemieux took a pass from Wayne Gretzky and threw a shot over the glove of goalie Sergei Mylnikov from the left hash mark for a 6-5 victory – and a place among the most celebrated sequences in Canadian sports history. Next week: Nos. 4-7.