Coming off of their first championship since 1991-92 expectations were high heading into the 2009-10 season in Pittsburgh. Sidney Crosby went on a goal scoring heater winning his first Rocket Richard Trophy with a league leading 51 goals. Heading into the playoffs the Penguins were definitely one of the favorites, but they ran into a brick wall in Jaro Halak who slammed the door shut on their first attempt at back-to-back titles in the Crosby Malkin era.

Here’s a look at some of the historical cards from that 2009-10 season.

Alex Ponikarovsky wasn’t the flashiest trade acquisition of Ray Shero’s tenure and ultimately it didn’t yield huge dividends with the early second round ouster. However, looking back Ponikarovsky was a bit of an analytics darling before that style of analysis had taken hold. The trade was a solid piece of business as Shero gave up Luca Caputi and Martkin Skoula to get it done. No draft picks and no important rostered players. Ponikarovsky had nine points in 16 games in the regular season for the Penguins. He added five points in 11 games in the playoffs. This was the extent with his time in Pittsburgh.

Kris Letang wasn’t the only up and coming defenseman on the Penguins roster. Alex Goligoski was starting to put things together in what would be a very good NHL career. This was about the time when the Penguins had drafted Joe Morrow and Simon Despres, soon after Derrick Pouliot and Olli Maatta would follow. Shero loved to collect puck moving defenseman. Goligoski’s rise would lead to the Penguins moving him a year later when Pittsburgh acquired James Neal and Matt Niskanen.

Jordan Leopold played on quite a number of NHL teams, eight to be exact. In many of those stops he was a well rounded and competent middle pairing defenseman. There wasn’t a lot of flash, but if you needed a reliable player with a decent cap hit and a reasonable cost to acquire Leopold was usually a good option to target. Pittsburgh got him before the 30’s hit Leopold and his productivity slowed down.

With Rob Scuderi in Los Angeles the Penguins needed someone to step up and fill the defensive role he left behind. Mark Eaton did exactly that by being in the 100th percentile in defensive work. The quiet and unassuming Eaton was great with his stick and anticipating plays. He was a set it and forget it player for the Penguins. You weren’t getting offense from him which is certainly OK if you’re in the top percentile of defense.

At the time Tyler Kennedy was a polarizing player among the fanbase. People used to get pretty annoyed at his shooting choices. In actuality he was a perfect third line role player which contributed to the Penguins being able to roll three very good lines at the opposition. I’m not sure what more you could want from a third line player than what Kennedy was providing at the time.

The 2009-10 team had some players who were only around for a short while which is appropriate because you don’t hear a lot about the 2009-10 season these days from a Penguins perspective. It is easy to get lost in the shuffle when the prior season is a championship and the next season is well... we know what happened there.

Thanks for reading!

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