At Greater Pittsburgh International Airport on March 30, 1990, a passenger named Mark Bart stepped off a flight from Los Angeles. He was met by reporters and cameras. They confirmed that he'd be playing for the Penguins in their season finale against Buffalo the next night.
Wearing No. 66.
Mario Lemieux had been out of the Penguins lineup since Feb. 14, the night his 46-game point-scoring streak ended, with back problems. A couple days later, he went to California for treatment from Dr. Robert Watkins, and didn't plan to return until he was 100 percent.
Craig Patrick, who had been hired to replace Tony Esposito as general mananger on Dec. 5 and was serving as interim coach, had Pittsburgh in second place in the Patrick Division when Mario left, although only ten points separated first and sixth places. Without Lemieux, the team went 5-12-4.
As they entered the final weekend, the Penguins were in fourth place with 72 points. The Islanders had 71, and the Flyers 70. Pittsburgh was at home to Buffalo on Saturday, Mar. 31, for their final game. The Islanders would host the Flyers that night, and then Detroit would come to Philadelphia on Sunday.
The Penguins would clinch a playoff spot with a win. A tie would eliminate the Islanders, but the Flyers could still move past Pittsburgh with two wins. Even a loss would still require the Islanders to win or the Flyers to get three points in their last two games. Playoff tickets were on sale, at prices ranging from $19-29.
Lemieux said, "It's important for myself, and for the Pittsburgh Penguins, and for my teammates and for the fans in Pittsburgh that we make the playoffs. There's always a risk involved, but I feel that's a risk I can deal with. I think I'm smart enough to go on the ice and not take chances."
Would he have come back if the game weren't so important?
"I don't think I would be. That would give me five or six more days to get ready and keep the program going. But I feel strong enough to be on the ice, so that's what I'm going to do."
He added, "I'm about 80 to 85 percent right now, so I decided to came back and give it a shot. We'll see what happens in the warm-up. I feel I can help the team, especially on the power play."
That power play had gone 3-for-38 in the last seven games, during which the Penguins went 0-4-3.
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With a tie, the Sabres could wrap up second place in the Adams Division, which would mean home ice for the first round. Clint Malarchuk started in goal for them, while Tom Barrasso was in net for the Penguins.
Mario ended up skating a regular shift. "He just went," Patrick said. "I tried to keep (the shifts) short, but keeping Mario off the ice is pretty difficult."
The first period was scoreless. Despite killing a Randy Gilhen high-sticking major, Pittsburgh still outshot Buffalo, 16-5. Lemieux had two of those shots, as well as hitting a post.
In the second period, at the end of a long shift, Mario tapped the puck to Bob Errey and headed to the bench. Errey carried the puck up ice and set up center Doug Smith in the slot. Smith beat Malarchuk at 4:02. With Rob Brown in the penalty box, Pierre Turgeon danced around Randy Hillier behind the net and fed Alexander Mogilny, who scored at 9:50 to tie it up; Dave Andreychuk had the other assist. Then at 15:00, Rick Vaive roofed a slapshot from the top of the circle to give the Sabres the lead, with assists from Turgeon and Phil Housley. Buffalo outshot Pittsburgh in the period, 14-7.
The Sabres' Grant Ledyard was called for holding at 2:02 of the third. The Penguin power play went to work, and Mario's 55-footer from the point went over Malarchuk's glove to tie the game at 3:38. Assists went to Paul Coffey and Jim Johnson. Malarchuk shone the rest of the way, and the third period ended, 2-2. The Penguins had a 15-7 edge in shots for the period.
The Islanders had won their game, 6-2. So they watched the end of the Pittsburgh-Buffalo game in their room, while their fans watched on the video board.
If they could get through overtime, the Penguins would ride Lemieux's heroics to the playoffs. But one minute in, defensive defenseman Uwe Krupp let a slapshot fly through traffic from the left point. "I didn't really see it until the last 10 or 15 feet," Barrasso said. "That's when it hit something. That's my responsibility." It found the net, and Pittsburgh missed the playoffs for the seventh time in eight years.
"He made a good play, a good shot," Mark Recchi said.
"It's tough to accept," said Lemieux, who picked up his 45th goal and 78th assist.
"I got more out of him than I expected tonight," Patrick admitted. Mario was on the ice for 24:28.
"We played great hockey tonight," Recchi said. "Malarchuk played a heckuva game for them."
"Just a tie," was Phil Bourque's reaction. "This is an awful feeling. It's like getting kicked in the gut with an iron boot."
"I felt good until the third period, when I started to get a little bit tired," said Lemieux, who ended up with four shots.
He was committed to an exercise program for his back. "It's just a matter of keeping with my program now. Every day for a couple of hours. It's going to be part of my life now."
"We're just as excited as we can be," said Islanders center Pat LaFontaine. "We'll have to send some kind of a gift to the Buffalo Sabres for this."
The Penguins ended up with the fifth pick in the 1990 draft.
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Monday's Post-Gazette had an article comparing this night to the last night of 1972. There was also a piece listing frustrating last-weekend-of-the-season playoff misses in 1973, 1986 and 1988.
Bruce Keidan wrote a column expressing optimism. "Personally, I subscribe to the theory that this protracted spasm of a season may well become a cornerstone for a successful hockey team. Meaning one that drinks from Lord Stanley's Cup.
I think the Penguins took one step backward the better to take several giant steps forward in seasons to come."
That was a minority viewpoint, though.
John Mehno in the Beaver County Times: "Patrick finished with a record of 22-26-4. Gene Ubriaco was 10-14-2 when he was fired on Dec. 5.
"Two coaches, both four games under .500.
"But isn't that the way it's always gone in Penguins land?"
In the Observer-Reporter, Bob Grove wondered: "The scariest thought now facing the organization is that even with Lemieux around for six years, the Penguins have qualified for the playoffs just once. Will he retire without coming close to a Stanley Cup?"
Dave Molinari had several things to say in The Pittsburgh Press: "Some of Patrick's coaching maneuvers were questionable, but his hiring will go down as one of the few highlights of this season. He is a good judge of talent and people and there is no reason to doubt he will build a strong team and organization. Unless, of course, he is undermined by the DeBartolo Corp. bureaucrats who came to the conclusion that Eddie Johnston wasn't a capable general manager. Edward DeBartolo is an extraordinary businessman, but he has a habit of taking hockey advice from people who don't know anything about a puck except how to slap a price tag on it."
"If the Penguins had played the final six weeks like a team that wanted to be in the playoffs, they would have been. There's no excuse for that attitude, but don't be shocked if they come up with some. It's tradition. And until that one changes, the Penguins' other quaint customs like losing won't, either."
"The Penguins, after all, have had a winning record just six times in 23 seasons and have never been accused of performing above their potential. Or even to it."
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To be clear, despite how those last few quotes look in hindsight, they were an accurate reflection of where the franchise was at this point. Not even Keidan went so far as to suggest that in the next year, Patrick would:
• Bring three Hall of Fame coaches into the organization, all of whom would serve behind the Penguins bench at some point.
• Sign a Hall of Famer as a free agent.
• Trade for three more Hall of Famers.
• Select a player with the fifth pick who's not in the Hall of Fame in 2018 only because he was still playing.
(Those names are Bob Johnson, Scotty Bowman, Herb Brooks, Bryan Trottier, Joe Mullen, Larry Murphy, Ron Francis and Jaromir Jagr. This ignores the Hall of Famers already on the team, including Patrick.)
And it would have been absurd to predict that a franchise that had won two best-of-seven series in its first 23 years would win as many Stanley Cups in its next two.
