The Penguins, on the other hand, had gone from original-expansion-squad-made-good in the late 1970s to a shockingly bad team in 1982-83 - so bad, in fact, there were whispers it might fold within a year. In fact, they were so desperate for ways to build they spent a few late draft picks in 1983 on players that nobody expected to see in the NHL: young Soviet stars Alexander Chernykh, Alexei Kasatonov, and Slava Fetisov. There was some buzz about 1st rounders John MacLean, Ken Daneyko, and a fiery little wing named Pat Verbeek, but it was years before they would realize their potential. They had just arrived in the Garden State in 1982 after failed stops in Kansas City and Colorado, and the dregs of those squads showed no signs of taking the Devils anywhere in their first year. What was the New Jersey Devils franchise seemed very much like a lost soul in 1983-84. Using information from our new interactive charts, we can see what set these teams apart, and led them to take different paths in what turned out to be a pretty wild race to the cellar of the NHL. While the Penguins would ultimately win out, sputtering to a 16-58-6 record (“good” for 38 points in the standings) to New Jersey’s 17-56-7 (41 points), the two teams were coming from distinctly different franchise backgrounds. In the latter half of the 1983-84 season, the Pittsburgh Penguins and New Jersey Devils were in an unspoken, pitched battle for the bottom of the league and everybody knew it. What do you do when a 6’4″ QMJHL forward who scored 184 points in 66 games in his last underage season scores at a 282-point pace in his draft year? You tank - you tank as hard as you can. ![]() Mario Lemieux with Laval of the QMJHL in 1984 photo by via Wikimedia Commons
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |