Some awards for strange season
I’ve covered games where it rained inside Mellon Arena. No, really, the drops landed to the left of my laptop, next to the rotary telephone.
I’ve covered seasons (1997-98) when meeting payroll was a bigger challenge than making the playoffs and when losing games (2003-04) was far preferable to winning them.
I covered the hiring of a coach who didn’t speak English (Ivan Hlinka) and written about a coach (Lou Angotti) who was actively trying to lose.
No, really, Angotti told me a few years ago how stressful it was working against his own players in 1983-84, as he tried to help secure the next year’s No. 1 pick (a kid named Lemieux).
“It was me against them, them against me,” Angotti said. “[The players] were trying to go out and win, and
I was using them to lose.”
So if the topic is “Strangest Regular Seasons in Penguins History,” let’s just say 2019-20 has plenty of company — but it absolutely belongs in the conversation.
It’s not every year they send you home from Columbus, Ohio, before your 70th game on account of a pandemic and put you in quarantine for two months (the Penguins revealed Thursday that an unidentified player has recently recovered from a bout with COVID-19).
The sudden end is what most people will remember about this particular regular season, which officially bit the dust last week when the NHL announced plans to resume play with a 24team postseason.
But what also should be remembered is how the Penguins persevered through an unthinkable spate of injuries to finish with the seventh-best record in the league. Mike Sullivan cured the amnesia that beset his team last season, when they forgot the importance of goal-prevention.
A wonderful Twitter feed called @ManGamesLostNHL figured the Penguins lost more points in the standings — nearly 21 — on account of injuries than any team in the league.
Such a season deserves at least a cursory review, so in lieu of the annual team awards ceremony at PPG Paints Arena, let’s conduct our own.
Let us give the 2019-20 regular season the send-off it deserves. Envelopes, please …
• Mario Lemieux Team MVP Award: Evgeni Malkin. When Sidney Crosby went down, the question was: Could Geno still carry the club? He answered yes, emphatically, with 74 points in 55 games.
• Johan Hedberg Where Did That Guy Come From Award: Tristan Jarry. It wasn’t even certain Jarry would be present for the season, let alone save it. But he rivaled Malkin for team MVP before some late-season slippage and could well be the goalie of the future.
• Johan Hedberg Where Did That Guy Come From Award, Part II: John Marino. No relation to Dan, but he’s a pretty good passer. Good defender, too. Who would have thought John Marino would become one of the Penguins’ most important players?
• Sergei Plotnikov/Derick Brassard Bust Award: Alex Galchenyuk. The Penguins were “excited” to acquire Galchenyuk as part of the Phil Kessel deal. But that was before he managed just five goals in 45 games. Then again, Kessel had only five even-strength goals in 70 games in Arizona.
• Beau Bennett Human Injury Report Award: Nick Bjugstad. Nobody’s fault, but Bjugstad missed 56 of the team’s 69 games.
• Best goal: Malkin was the Harlem Globetrotters. John Carlson was the Washington Generals — allowing Malkin to pass the puck to himself between Carlson’s skates.
• Best save: To hear Bob Errey tell it, Matt Murray did something called “The Scorpion” to rob Anthony Beauvillier.
• Best pass: Just your average Sidney Crosby blind, between-the-skates, backhanded feed for a pointblank goal. Teddy Blueger says thanks.
• Best game: Penguins 4, Bruins 3, Jan. 19 at PPG Paints Arena. Notable on several counts: Fans mockcheered Matt Murray. Penguins erased a 3-0 deficit to beat a team they rarely beat. Jack Johnson scored a short-handed goal.
• Worst game: Losing to San Jose, 5-0, as part of an apocalyptic West Coast trip wasn’t good, but the game that smelled even worse was the 3-0 loss in the Flyers before a 10-day break. The Penguins were not the same team afterward, going 9-9-1 in their final 19 games, with a 3.16 goals against average that would rank 26th over the full season.
• Top story line: A good old-fashioned goalie controversy. Just replace a Fleury with a Jarry, and there you go.
• Top quote: “No Comment.” — Murray, the night the home fans mockcheered him.