Tuesday, December 27, 2005By Shelly Anderson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
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Five years ago, much about the setting was similar.
The calendar read Dec. 27. The Penguins, owned by Mario Lemieux, were preparing to play the Toronto Maple Leafs at Mellon Arena. The day and month, the teams and the site will be the same tonight, but the game against Toronto will have a much different flavor.
On this date in 2000, Lemieux was the man of the hour. That was the night he ended his retirement and returned to the team, this time as player/owner.
After an emotional, invigorating pregame ceremony in front of a standing-room crowd of 17,148, Lemieux had a goal and two assists to lead a 5-0 rout of the Maple Leafs.
Don't expect any eerie repeats tonight.
Lemieux still owns and plays for the team, but he is out of the lineup while being evaluated for a heartbeat irregularity. As of last night, tickets were still available. The Penguins have not shut out an opponent this season and, for that matter, are struggling to beat anyone.
And there will be no carefully planned salutes before the game.
"It was electrifying," Penguins assistant general manager and interim assistant coach Eddie Johnston said yesterday of that night five years ago. "It was amazing just to be there."
The Penguins, who had retired Lemieux's No. 66, lowered the commemorative banner from the roof to signify that the man who had steered them to two Stanley Cup championships in the early 1990s was returning.
"Just to have [Lemieux] back ... I don't think people realized how hard he worked to be able to come back because he wouldn't come back unless he could play at a certain level," Johnston said. "Then, he stepped on the ice, and you knew he was back right away."
Just 33 seconds into the game, Lemieux, from behind the net, set up Jaromir Jagr for the game's first goal and the first of Lemieux's three points.
Although he had been off the ice more than three years, since April 26, 1997, Lemieux was running on more than adrenaline from the atmosphere that night.
He kept up the production and had 35 goals, 76 points in 43 games and helped the Penguins reach the Eastern Conference final.
"It didn't just help our club; the rest of the year, you couldn't get into anyplace we went. It was great," said Johnston, who, as the Penguins' general manager drafted Lemieux first overall in 1984 and has watched the Hall of Fame forward's career closely.
"I can't believe it's been five years [since the comeback]. It seems like yesterday."
For the franchise, it has been a long five years. With financial constraints, the team failed to make the playoffs the following three seasons, before the 2004-05 season was wiped out by a work stoppage. Now, it is faced with the possibility of being sold and moved if there are no imminent plans for a new local arena.
With hopes raised by a new collective bargaining agreement, the Penguins retooled their roster for this season, building it around Lemieux and another top overall pick, Sidney Crosby.
Yet they are last in the Eastern Conference, despite having changed coaches and a few faces in the lineup.
When the puck drops tonight, with Lemieux's absence, there will be no Penguins players or coaches who were there five years ago on the night of the comeback.
One person who was on the bench that night and will be tonight is longtime equipment manager Steve Latin.
"It was like he'd never been gone," Latin said. "He just slowed the whole game down to his pace and he just did what he wanted to do."
Latin said Lemieux is a creature of habit, not one who jumps at change, so the equipment that Lemieux used that night was, for the most part, the same that Latin had saved when Lemieux retired.
So for Latin, the impact of Lemeiux's return hit not during the pregame ceremony but moments earlier.
"It was just exciting seeing him in the dressing room getting dressed again," Latin said.
(Shelly Anderson can be reached at shanderson@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1721.)
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