Apr 16, 2002 5 min read

PITTSBURGH (AP) – If nothing else, player-owner Mario Lemieux now knows what it was like for the Pittsburgh Penguins into those bleak, seemingly hopeless days before he joined them in 1984. The half-empty arena in which fans can be heard talking in the stands. Players going on the ice merely to collect a paycheck. Weeks’ worth of meaningless games. Few identifiable names in the lineup. Few prospects awaiting their chance to replace them.

The Penguins have seen it all before, even if Lemieux hadn’t. But what they certainly didn’t expect was to see it in 2001-02, a failed folly of a season memorable only for its futility.

“I’m telling you, it’s devastating,” backup goalie Jean Sebastien-Aubin said after the Penguins completed a 28-41-8-5 season by going winless (0-8-1-1) in their final 10 games. “You can’t feel any worse than you do right now. It’s the worst feeling in the world.”

General manager Craig Patrick certainly felt that way, chewing out the team for their lack of effort following a season-ending 7-1 loss Saturday to Buffalo.

After unexpectedly advancing to the Eastern Conference finals during Lemieux’s comeback season in 2000-01, the Penguins knew it would it different without the traded Jaromir Jagr, who had won four straight NHL scoring titles, plus defenseman and team leader Bob Boughner, who signed with Calgary.

But they had no clue going into the season just how different it would be.

It was difficult enough replacing Jagr’s production, but they simply had no chance after their other core players – Lemieux, Martin Straka, Robert Lang and Alexei Kovalev – all missed significant playing time with injuries. Only Kovalev, who had 76 points in 67 games despite missing a month after knee surgery, resembled himself.

Lemieux’s season effectively ended during a Sept. 22 exhibition when he felt pain in his hip. The twinge became a serious, painful condition that ultimately took weeks to diagnose and months to heal, and resulted in the worst season of his Hall of Fame career (6 goals, 25 assists in 24 games).

He might not have played at all following his Oct. 29 surgery – the day after Straka broke his leg and also was effectively wiped out for the season – if it wasn’t for the Olympics.

Lemieux estimated he was only 50 percent healthy, yet played well enough to captain Canada’s gold-medal winning team, then shut down his season after playing only once more for the Penguins.

Even without their biggest star in the lineup after Feb. 27, Patrick predicted the Penguins would make the playoffs for a 12th consecutive season. But without the financial resources to go shopping for a big-ticket player at the trading deadline, Patrick tried getting by with bargain basement pickups such as Jamie Pushor, Jeff Toms, Shean Donovan and Ville Nieminen, with predictable results:

-They won only once in 13 games (1-9-1-2) after the trading deadline, ending the NHL’s second-longest streak of consecutive playoff appearances. Their 10-game winless streak to end the season was their longest since a similar run in 1987-88.

“It looked like we wanted to finish the season without getting hurt,” forward Aleksey Morozov said.

-Their 28 victories were the fewest since 1984-85 (24) – including the lockout-shortened 1994-95 season, when they played only 48 games. Their season began to collapse Jan. 29, when Kovalev’s failure to clear the zone with 20 seconds left in Philadelphia led to two quick goals and an overtime loss and started them on an eight-game winless streak.

-They had their fewest points (69) in a full season since 1984-85 (53), Lemieux’s first season.

-They had the second-worst power play in club history and the worst since their 1967-68 expansion season. They also scored the fewest goals (198) in a full season since 1969-70 (182). Kris Beech, the only player obtained for Jagr to play with them, was a team-low minus-25.

What is almost forgotten after a season so bad is that former coach Ivan Hlinka was fired following an 0-4 start and later sued the team for failing to pay the rest of his contract. Or that one-time star Kevin Stevens simply walked away from the team during a January road trip to Buffalo, and has yet to officially address his status.

Hlinka’s replacement, longtime assistant Rick Kehoe, already has been told he will return for the second year of his $700,000, two-year contract. But many of the players on the ice at season’s end undoubtedly won’t be back.

Asked to assess what he was watching late in the season, Patrick said it was difficult because “six or seven guys won’t be here.”

Lemieux has already said he will return, and Patrick also wants to re-sign Lang, a free agent who twice broke his hand.

“It’s always tough when you’ve been losing, but we’ve had a pretty good run,” Lemieux said. “I think we’ve been a little bit spoiled over the years in Pittsburgh, and now we’re back to reality.

“But we’ll be back next year.”