Stanley Cup Update: Channeling His Inner Brooks Orpik

In the spring of 1970, the Penguins and their bitter rivals, the St. Louis Blues, brawled their way through a Semi-Final series.

Scotty Bowman’s battlin’ Blues featured the roughhewn defensive tandem of Noel Picard and Bob Plager, aided and abetted by Bob’s swashbuckling older brother and one-time NHL penalty king, Barclay Plager.

Pens combatants included Tracy Pratt, Bryan Hextall (Ron’s dad) and agitators Glen “Slats” Sather and Bryan “Bugsy” Watson, early practitioners in the fine art of squirting gasoline on incipient fires a la the Panthers’ Brad Marchand. Even our goalie, Al Smith, was a battler, having famously slugged it out with the younger Plager at center ice one night at the old Civic Arena.

Although the Pens held their own in the fisticuffs, the Blues won the war, prevailing in six hotly contested games.

Back then, such brawling was commonplace in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Not so much anymore.

That is, until the Panthers and Oilers squared off in a rematch of last spring’s Final. Two excellent hockey teams, physical to boot, going toe-to-toe.

During Monday night’s Game 3 of what’s been an incredibly tense series, emotions boiled over, resulting in an old-fashioned line brawl midway through the third period that would’ve done the Pens and Blues proud.

Arguably, the game turned 23 minutes earlier, when Sam Bennett authored a shift for the ages. With the measured coolness of an assassin, the Panthers’ power forward flattened Vasily Podkolzin, then ran John Klingberg into the wall for good measure, before scooping up a pass from Eetu Luostarinen and bursting up ice to score on a breakaway. His playoff-leading 14^th goal for those keeping track.

Wholly reminiscent of another shift in another Game 3 some 16 years before, when Pens’ defenseman Brooks Orpik made like a human battering ram and delivered four booming hits within a 15-second span against defending Cup-champion Detroit to signify yet another turning point in another series. Ironically, with his team up by a score of 3-1, same as Bennett.

In my mind, I began to catalog the tough players on either side. For the Panthers, Bennett, Matthew Tkachuk, Jonah Gadjovich, A.J. Greer, to say nothing of Aaron Ekblad, who sent Connor McDavid reeling with a bracing check at the blue line.

For the Oil, Evander Kane, who spent the evening chasing Panthers and trekking to the sin bin, Trent Frederic, Corey Perry and Darnell Nurse, who held his own in the main event against the very tough Gadjovich.

Shifting gears, it’s hard to imagine more than a couple of these guys (if any) being welcome on Mike Sullivan’s black-and-gold teams.

Small wonder we lacked fierceness and competitive fire, to say nothing of an actual physical presence, especially during the latter stages of Sully’s reign.

For the record, I always thought Greer would be a nice addition to our fourth line. Big, physical, aggressive, decent skater, can fight and play some. That particular breed never entered the picture under Sullivan.

Back to Orpik. When the Pens selected the bristling defenseman with the 18^th overall pick in the 2000 Entry Draft, it presaged a dramatic shift in philosophy.

Indeed, in the three preceding drafts the Pens had taken Konstantin Koltsov, Milan Kraft and Robert Dome with their top picks, skilled but lightweight Euros who failed to make an impact. Goaltending bust Craig Hillier the year before.

Starting with Orpik’s selection, there was a conscious effort to factor toughness and compete into the mix by then-GM Craig Patrick and his successor, Ray Shero. Players like Colby Armstrong, Paul Bissonnette, Daniel Carcillo, Tyler Kennedy, Ryan Malone, Ryan “Hands of” Stone, and peppery Max Talbot soon followed.

Not all of them made it, and only a few contributed directly to our Cup triumphs. But there’s no denying the overall shift in approach contributed mightily to our success.

I hope POHO/GM Kyle Dubas is taking notes. I hope he picks an aggressive, high-motor type with our first choice in the upcoming draft like Kashawn Aitcheson, Brady Martin or Carter Bear, rather than a kid who might not play with the same fire and intensity.

It’s time for the Pens’ pendulum to swing back in the opposite direction.