(Wrote this for tomorrow, and then realized the date was wrong. So pull up a chair for some bonus history content..)
1992: Ronnie tips the balance of the series, and playoffs
Pittsburgh’s hopes to defend their 1991 Stanley Cup championship were in deep trouble on May 9th, ahead of Game 4 of the Patrick Division Finals against the Rangers. The notorious Adam Graves incident happened in Game 1, breaking the hand and knocking out Mario Lemieux for the series. New York went on to win Games 2+3 and take
a 2-1 series lead. Lemieux’s dominance at that point was astounding, he had produced 17 points in the six games against Washington in the previous series. Lemieux had scored 131 points that season in just 64 games to claim the Art Ross trophy.
To make matters worse, the team’s third leading scorer Joe Mullen was also unavailable. The future Hall of Famer had scored 42 goals and 87 points in 1991-92 but was mostly a non-factor by the playoffs with a bum knee that limited him to four points and nine total games that had him miss Game 4 against the Rangers.
Piling on even further, NY took a 3-1 lead by the second period of Game 4 and really pushed the Pens into deep waters. Then Ron Francis took over. Francis recorded two goals in regulation and the Pens got another from Troy Loney to help extend the game to overtime. Francis completed the hat trick in OT, the series was then tied at 2-2 and the Rangers’ best chance at taking over had disappeared in half a game.
That version of the Penguins wouldn’t lose again. Like, at all that season. Today was the first of 11 straight wins for that team (Games 4+ 5+6 to defeat the Rangers, then a sweep of the Boston Bruins in the conference finals, then another sweep of Chicago in the Stanley Cup Final) to reclaim the Cup with authority. That bright future was in doubt on May 9th, until it wasn’t.
