Mark Madden's Hot Take: It's an anniversary year for Penguins' most star-studded Cup team

It crept up quietly because of covid, but 2021 is the 30th anniversary of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ first Stanley Cup championship season.

AT&T SportsNet aired the official highlight video Thursday. It didn’t look like today’s hockey. The goalies wore reasonably sized equipment. Blocking shots wasn’t every player’s sworn duty.

There’s nobody like Mario Lemieux today, either.

Lemieux played just 26 regular-season games in 1990-91 because of back issues. Those made him miss a game in the Stanley Cup Final, too. But Lemieux ripped the postseason to shreds, notching 44 points in 23 games to win MVP honors. He netted his all-time signature goal in Game 2 of that final when he split Minnesota’s defense before deking backhand.

Lemieux was so dominant, it was unfair.

Tom Barrasso was no peach to deal with, but he was brilliant in goal. His puck skills neutralized so much. You dumped it in, Barrasso dumped it out.

Injuries to Barrasso gave backup Frank Pietrangelo the chance to win four games, including one in the final. Pietrangelo made “The Save” to rob Peter Stastny of a sure goal and win Game 6 of the first-round series vs. New Jersey. He also pitched a shutout in Game 7.

What Ulf Samuelsson did to Boston’s Cam Neely in the Eastern Conference final was criminal. Tough luck for Neely, because he was trying to do the same to Samuelsson. It looked like two bighorn sheep butting heads. Neely’s knee took a beating. He was never the same after.

Kevin Stevens and Mark Recchi combined for 27 goals. Stevens got a playoff-best 17 in 24 games. That’s amazing even if you are skating on a line (and power play) with Lemieux.

The bottom six was incredible. Finished every check and scored big goals.

The stories seem endless: Paul Coffey, Joey Mullen and Bryan Trottier add to their ring collections. Jaromir Jagr bursts onto the scene and wins the Cup as a rookie. Badger Bob Johnson coaches the Penguins to a championship in a tenure that was tragically one and done. GM Craig Patrick’s trade-deadline acquisition of Ron Francis and Samuelsson was a huge catalyst. (Headline in The Hockey News: “Hartford Wins the Deal.” Uh, maybe not.)

Celebrating the occasion might be a bit unwieldy for the Penguins. Fans won’t attend games in the coming season’s early going and perhaps not at all. A better bet might be to fete the ’91 and ’92 Cup-winning teams during the 2021-22 season. Twenty players have their names on the Cup for both years. Maybe the Penguins can convince Jagr to show up. Can’t wait to see Barrasso.

Jagr, 48, still plays for Kladno in the Czech league. (He owns the team.) He had 15 goals and 14 assists in 38 games last year. He has promised to play at least through 2021-22 since Kladno is scheduled to play a Winter Classic-style outdoor game in December 2021.

Was the ’91 Cup-winner the Penguins’ best team ever? Phil Bourque was on it, and he thinks so:

“The ’91 team was the best of the five,” Bourque said. “All you have to do is count the Hall-of-Famers (nine, including Johnson and Patrick). You know Jagr will be in, too, and you could debate if Barrasso belongs.” (He does.)

The ’09, ’16 and ’17 teams couldn’t be as talented because of the salary cap. (The cap also helped keep the Sidney Crosby-era Penguins together.) On that ’91 team, Trottier pulled third-line duty. Mullen and Jagr sometimes did, too.

Then again: H-B-K! H-B-K! H-B-K!