Penguins Faves: Five (Okay, Six) Players I Wish We Still Had

There’s an old saying. Something along the lines of, “if you see a good idea, steal it.” Or at the very least, appropriate it and bend it to your needs. Giving full credit to Dan Kingerski of PHN and his recent article titled, 5 Most Under-Appreciated Players of the Crosby Era, I decided to list the five players from the Crosby Era, all retired, I wish we still had. (Okay, make that six…I couldn’t help but add an extra.)

You’ll no doubt notice my faves have a lot in common. All, save for one, are forwards. And all were alpha-competitors who employed a hard-nosed style. Without further preamble, here’s my list, in no particular order.

PATRIC HORNQVIST, Right Wing (2014-20)

Of all the players who’ve sported the skating Penguins logo, if safe to say none were quite like Patric Hörnqvist. Employing a style best described as The Tasmanian Devil on skates, the rugged Swede rose from humble hockey beginnings (230rd overall pick in 2005) to establish himself as the prototype crease-crashing forward.

You could make a case, and quite successfully, that his acquisition (along with Phil Kessel’s), served as the catalyst for our most recent Cups. “Horny” was just such a rabid, almost violent, competitor. Game after game he’d plant himself in the crease and absorb a beating from opposing defensemen in the form of slashes, elbows, high sticks and cross checks without flinching.

Equal parts fearless and relentless, he was virtually impossible to discourage. I can’t for one second imagine how difficult he was to play against.

However, there was more to his game than just the physical aspect. With the possible exception of Jake Guentzel, Hörnqvist was the best on tip-ins and deflections I’ve ever seen.

Clutch, too. During the ’16 Cup run, he tallied nine goals, second only to Kessel among black-and-gold scorers, including the clincher against San Jose. The following spring he scored the Cup-winning goal against his original team, the Predators, swatting the puck past Pekka Rinne from the side of the net in his trademark swarming style.

“SCARY” GARY ROBERTS, Left Wing (2007-08)

The nickname says it all. Gary Roberts was a ferocious competitor and one of the last of a dying breed of old-school power forwards who could hit, fight and score.

By the time the Pens acquired Roberts in the spring of 2007, he was 40 years old and well past his prime. Yet thanks to his superb conditioning and grizzled determination he more than kept pace, tallying seven goals in 19 games down the stretch…roughly a 30-goal pace for a full season.

However, it was his leadership and toughness, legendary at this stage of his career, that made Roberts one of my all-time favorites. After missing nearly the entire second half of the ’07-08 campaign with a high ankle sprain, he returned with a vengeance for the opening game of the playoffs. The old battler struck for two goals against Ottawa, the team that had outclassed us the season before, then went on a search-and-destroy mission in the closing minutes, challenging Cody Bass and literally the entire Sens squad.

His signature “Scary Gary” moment came, fittingly enough, on the road against Philly a few months earlier. He squared off with Ben Eager, a 240-pound bruiser some 18 years his junior, and proceeded to whup the tar out of him.

Rarely have I been prouder of a Penguin.

CHRIS KUNITZ, Left Wing (2009-17)

From the moment he arrived from Anaheim in a trade for Ryan Whitney back in February 2009, I became a huge Chris Kunitz fan. They simply didn’t come any gamer, tougher or grittier. Or classier, for that matter.

Night after night, Kunitz squeezed every ounce of effort from his compact frame, almost always in physical fashion. No matter the size or reputation of his foe, he finished his checks. Hard. I long lamented that if he’d weighed 210 pounds instead of a buck-ninety soaking wet, there would have been no stopping him.

Yet Kunitz was still plenty good. A First Team NHL All-Star in 2013, he topped the 20-goal plateau six times—including a career-best 35 in 2013-14—while serving as a valued performer for four Stanley Cup champions.

Not too shabby for an undrafted free agent from Ferris State who once was waived twice within a two-week span in October 2005.

However, it was his work near the end of his black-and-gold tenure that impressed me the most. As his scoring touch began to wane, Kunitz willingly embraced a bottom-six role with gusto. Although always edgy, he ramped up his physical play to even greater impact, delivering 691 hits over his last three seasons in the ‘Burgh.

The hard-driving veteran enjoyed his moment in the sun during Game 7 of the 2017 Eastern Conference Final against the Senators. Back on a line with Sidney Crosby, “Kuni” drifted into open space in the left circle and promptly drilled Sid’s picture-perfect feed over the shoulder of goalie Craig Anderson for the series clinching, double-overtime winner.

MAX TALBOT, Forward (2005-11)

Although he dubbed himself “Superstar,” nobody was going to confuse Max Talbot with high-pedigree teammates Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. However, the son of a plumber was a feisty, heart-and-soul player with an underrated scoring touch and a penchant for coming up big in clutch situations.

How big you ask? During the ’09 Cup Final series against Detroit, the former eighth-round pick notched a team-best four goals. More than Sid. More than Geno. During the decisive Game 7, “Mad Max” struck for both black-and-gold goals to cinch the Cup.

Perhaps my favorite Max moment, aside from his thoroughly kitschy star turn in an A&L Motors commercial, came earlier in the ‘09 postseason, the first round to be exact. The Flyers had grabbed a 3-0 lead in Game 6 and were threatening to blow the Pens out of the Wachovia Center. Talbot, whose blunder had led directly to one of those goals, responded by goading the very tough ex-Pens farmhand Daniel Carcillo into a fight. With a separated shoulder.

Eye blackened after absorbing a beating, Max famously shushed the howling Philly crowd as he skated to the sin bin. The Pens scored 14 seconds later, touching off a five-goal run to clinch the series.

BROOKS ORPIK, Defense (2002-14)

Long before Jacob Trouba began delivering elbow smashes and borderline hits as a member of the hated Rangers, the Pens boasted a predatory defenseman of their own. Drafted 18^th overall in 2000, Brooks Orpik represented a seismic shift in the Pens’ organizational approach in more ways than one. The heir apparent to the equally hard-hitting Darius Kasparaitis, the Pens instantly became more difficult to play against with Orpik patrolling the blue line.

Bristling checks flowed as freely from the burly 217-pound rearguard as perspiration at the beach. Opposing forwards quickly learned to keep their heads up…or else. I recall a game in 2012 when Brooks literally launched the Bruins’ Daniel Paille into orbit with a thunderous open-ice check.

Among the last of a dying breed of great open-ice hitters, No. 44 made a career out of softening up opponents with bone-crushing checks. During Game 1 of the 2009 Stanley Cup Final, Orpik sent a message to the Red Wings by nailing former black-and-gold teammate Marián Hossa at center ice. (The sharpshooting forward would fail to score a goal during the series.) With the Pens trailing 2-games-to-none, Orpik made like a human battering ram in Game 3, delivering four booming hits during a 15-second span. Arguably the turning point of the series.

After signing with the blood-rival Capitals in 2014, Brooks became the answer to a trivia question as the only player to win a Cup with both Crosby and Alex Ovechkin.

RYAN MALONE, Left Wing (2003-08)

When the Pens drafted Ryan Malone 115^th overall out of St. Cloud State in 1999, you had to wonder if there was some nepotism involved. After all, his dad, Greg Malone, was the team’s director of scouting.

Turns out, the senior Malone did us a solid. As a player, Greg, taken 19^th overall by the Pens in 1976, had been a hard-charging forward with a scoring touch. In Ryan’s case, the acorn didn’t fall far from the tree.

Sharing his dad’s nickname (Bugsy) as well as his determined style of play, Malone scored a team-best 22 goals for a putrid Pens squad in ’03-04 to earn NHL All-Rookie Team honors. Cast in the role of a protector due to his size (6’4” 219) and aggressive bent, Ryan initially didn’t fare too well when the gloves came off, perhaps due to his collegiate background. However, by the ’07-08 campaign he’d transformed into a very capable fighter who could throw with either hand. Tutored in the fine art of net-front play by veteran John LeClair, Bugsy emerged as a top-flight power forward as well, lighting the lamp 27 times that season.

I’ll never forget the raw courage Malone displayed during Game 5 of the ’08 Cup Final. Already playing with a broken nose, courtesy of a check from Niklas Kronwall, Bugsy absorbed a Hal Gill slap shot to the face. I thought he was done for sure. However, moments later the rugged winger returned to the ice with cotton balls stuffed in his nostrils to staunch the bleeding. How he was able to breathe, let alone skate, I’ll never know. But there he was, giving his all while logging 29:37 of ice time during the Pens’ three-overtime victory.

One of my greatest disappointments as a Pens’ fan occurred that summer, when Ray Shero, operating under severe cap constraints, traded Malone’s rights, along with those of fellow UFA-to-be Roberts, to the Lightning for a third-round pick.

With two of my six faves from the Crosby Era stripped away in one fell swoop, I was crestfallen. Fortunately, reinforcements Kunitz, Bill Guerin and Matt Cooke were on the way.