Players you still can't believe are/were once Penguins
Marian Hossa - I still can't get my head around the fact that we once had Marian freaking Hossa skating next to Sid. Our first truly elite dominant scoring winger since Jagr.
John Leclair - I didn't want to believe it the first time he dressed for us, and still can't quite fathom it now.
Janne Laukkanen - For some reason I always associate him with Ottawa during their first transition from being laughable to respectable. Still think it's weird that he played for us.
Alexander Daigle and Pat Falloon - There were some reclamation projects that were simply ludicrous.
Brian Holzinger - When we were sucking, we were REALLY sucking hard.
Richard Park was the first name that came to my mind for some reason.
Throw in Petr Nedved and Garth Snow, while we're at it.
EDIT: Gotta echo Luc Robitaille. When he was with the Pens was when I first started watching so it seemed to me that he was just another Penguin player and had been there for years.
Last edited by Dr Frasier Crane: 10-15-2009 at 12:52 AM.
great call. it didn't sink in as much at the time because the pens were spoiled with such talent everywhere up front in that era, but man was i ever a lucky luc fan. what a shame that the only year he was in the igloo was lemieux's year off. i'll always love his OT winner against the caps in the playoffs that year on the feed from the incomparable francois leroux.
Definitely Alexander Daigle and Pat Falloon. Wow. The Pens picked them up at the point of their careers where they should have been headed to the Hall of Fame.
Seriously, I never envisioned, when Hossa was blossoming into a marquee talent for Ottawa/Atlanta, that he'd someday be a Penguin.
Some that I completely forgot were Tim Horton, as mentioned above, and of course Palffy. I always used to wonder how such a skimpy little guy could have such a bullet shot. Should have dubbed it one of the wonders of the world.
Although he's not really a Penguin right now, I have a hard time believing Wyatt Smith is in our organization right now. Wyatt Smith..
Oh ya, and Ryan VandenBussche. What a no-talent ass-clown he was.
Hossa seemed like a EA sports game trade. Especially since Shero had a reputation for being conservative.
How about Satan? That was just weird.
LaClair will always be weird as well. He is a Flyer, not a pen.
Amen. And what's the first thing he does when he gets here? Chops Geno down at the knees and separates his shoulder. The whole thing was a covert op, filthadephia-style.
Pens fans will always miss Hossa, regardless of what happened. Could you imagine what he and Sid would have been able to do over the course of 7 years together? Man, he is the perfect winger for Sid. Fast, great at both ends of the ice, can make plays with the puck on his stick and finish with the best of them. Oh well, so much for the nostalgia.
I realize keeping him around would have cost us Orpik and probably would have made the Staal extension a bit tougher. I'm glad things turned out the way they did, but man would it have been fun to see Hossa stick around.
Pens fans will always miss Hossa, regardless of what happened. Could you imagine what he and Sid would have been able to do over the course of 7 years together? Man, he is the perfect winger for Sid. Fast, great at both ends of the ice, can make plays with the puck on his stick and finish with the best of them. Oh well, so much for the nostalgia.
I realize keeping him around would have cost us Orpik and probably would have made the Staal extension a bit tougher. I'm glad things turned out the way they did, but man would it have been fun to see Hossa stick around.
A bit OT, but after watching more of Crosby's amazing passing not get translated into scoring....I can't help but wonder.
How many Cup(s) would Crosby be happy with before wanting to sacrifice team depth to get better wingers? I mean, we all know teams win Cups. But, at a certain point, I can't help but wonder if Crosby might not prefer to "give up Staal to keep Hossa" so to speak. Just to see how fat he could get off of feeding guys that can finish. And honestly, I couldn't fault him.
Oh, and the idea of Tim Horton as a Penguin is ****ing strange.
A bit OT, but after watching more of Crosby's amazing passing not get translated into scoring....I can't help but wonder.
How many Cup(s) would Crosby be happy with before wanting to sacrifice team depth to get better wingers? I mean, we all know teams win Cups. But, at a certain point, I can't help but wonder if Crosby might not prefer to "give up Staal to keep Hossa" so to speak. Just to see how fat he could get off of feeding guys that can finish. And honestly, I couldn't fault him.
Oh, and the idea of Tim Horton as a Penguin is ****ing strange.
Yeah. I'm actually kind of worried about Geno turning into a bit of a prima donna as far as linemates go. Year after year he's been teamed with garbage (the Malone/Sykora line of a few years ago was the closest he's probably going to get to a real, solid line, and even then...he made those guys), and I have a really bad feeling it might eventually just wear on him.
Sid gets the same situation as Geno, as far as wingers go, but I'm not worried about him because he's the consummate professional. The Kunitz/Guerin line might be Sid's Malone/Sykora (the best he's probably going to get, thanks to the cap).
Agreed on LeClair and Robitaille. I'll add Dave "The Hammer" Schultz and Marty McSorley (who even had two stints here). Also Stephane Richer. And Cornelius.
