Penguins Season in Jeopardy?

As I watched our Penguins completely fall apart on Saturday night against San Jose, the words to the old 1980’s tune Jeopardy kept playing in my head. “Our love’s in jeopardy (jeopardy) baby…”

I began to wonder if it applies to the Pens’ season as well.

I don’t know if I ever recall seeing a team take such a precipitous tumble, especially since they were playing comparatively well just before the slide. It’s as if Dr. Jekyll crept into the locker room unannounced and slipped all of our guys his cursed potion, turning us into a collection of on-ice Mr. Hydes.

In an interesting article for the Tribune-Review yesterday, John Steigerwald duly noted that the Pens aren’t the only top team to hit the skids. The last two Cup champions, Washington and St. Louis, both lost six of seven recently. Boston dropped eight of nine in December. The surprising Blue Jackets were making a charge until they dropped eight in a row.

While it helped to put the Pens’ current six-game skid in perspective, it’s hardly a comfort. Especially in the ultra-competitive Metropolitan Division. Sneeze and you’re liable to drop from first place to the bottom of the playoff pile in the blink of an eye.

Are we in serious danger of missing the playoffs? I’ll answer that question with an observation. The Pens are currently five points ahead of the top non-playoff team, Carolina, with 18 games to play. Four of them against the ‘Canes.

As unthinkable as it is, the answer is “yes.” We could miss the playoffs.

This isn’t going to make for a comforting read. But here are three of the more famous (or infamous) collapses in Penguins history.

1970-71

Only the season before, the Pens had finished second in the West Division and made it to the Stanley Cup Semifinals. Although they fell to the blood-rival Blues in a hotly contested six-game set, good things were expected of the ’70-71 squad.

However, the Pens appeared to be star-crossed right from the start. Rising young star Michel Briere was critically injured in an auto accident and slipped into a coma, casting a pall over the team. In December, the league assumed control of the financially troubled franchise from owner Donald Parsons.

Despite the misfortune, the Pens entered the New Year tied for the final playoff spot in the West. But injuries (sound familiar?) struck down top scorers Keith McCreary and Ken Schinkel and key defensemen Duane Rupp and Bryan Watson within the span of a week. The Pens slogged to a 2-13-7 finish to miss the playoffs.

In a tragic postscript to a season filled with disappointment, Briere passed away on April 13, 1971.

1985-86

Entering the ’85-86 season, the Pens had missed the playoffs three years in a row. But GM Eddie Johnston had slowly but surely built a competitive team around burgeoning superstar Mario Lemieux through a combination of adroit drafting, trades and free-agent pickups.

The coach was Bob Berry. Intense and driven, in many ways he reminded me of present skipper Mike Sullivan.

Executing Berry’s disciplined, tight-checking system to a T, the Pens surged above the .500 mark. When they opened March with a crisp 5-1 victory over Hartford, they seemed a shoo-in to make the playoffs.

Hoping to buttress his young squad and provide Lemieux with a legit front-line winger, Johnston acquired former 40-goal man and matinee idol Ron Duguay from Detroit at the trade deadline. On paper…a perfect fit. On the ice…anything but.

As Mario’s picturesque setups clanked off the mop-topped Duguay’s stick, the Pens suddenly nose-dived. They fell into an 0-6-1 slide and, after a brief respite, went 0-4-1 to miss the playoffs again.

1989-90

Following six long seasons of futility, the Pens made the postseason with a flourish in ’88-89. Enjoying a season for the ages, Lemieux tallied an astronomical 85 goals and 199 points while supplanting Wayne Gretzky as the greatest player in the game. Linemate Robbie Brown scored 49 goals; superstar defenseman Paul Coffey 30 more from the back-end along with 113 points.

Bristling with young talent, great things were expected of ’89-90 squad. But the Pens never took flight. The players revolted against second-year coach Gene Ubriaco, leading to the dual dismissals of “Ubie” and GM Tony Esposito. Although he logged an astounding 46-game point-scoring streak…second longest in NHL history…Mario’s back was a wreck, forcing him from the lineup on Valentine’s Day.

For a time the team banded together. It entered March with a firm hold on second place in the Patrick Division. But the strain of playing without Lemieux and goalie Tom Barrasso took its toll, and the Pens slipped into a dismal 2-10-3 funk down the stretch.

Despite his ailing back, Mario courageously suited up for the season finale against Buffalo and dramatically scored a goal and set up another. But the Pens lost in overtime to complete the collapse.

In a positive footnote, the team would go on to win back-to-back Cups over the next two seasons, ushering in a bold, new era of success and prosperity.