Hockey History As Told By Cardboard - PK Subban

The flamboyant and unusually vocal PK Subban is certainly a sometimes polarizing figure in the NHL.  His style and outspoken personality injects a lot of spark to the often dry, wrote delivery of many NHL stars.  

The 2019-20 season marked Subban's 11th in the NHL and his first playing for the New Jersey Devils. The Jersey fan base was excited when the Devils acquired the all-star defenseman in June 2019 via a trade with Nashville.  He scored his first goal as a Devil on October 17, 2019, when he deposited the puck into an empty net with 48 seconds remaining to put the finishing touch on New Jersey's 5-2 victory over the New York Rangers.

Today In Penguins History: 4/13/1991 THE SAVE

Today in Penguins history, the franchises first Stanley Cup victory was assured by the quick glove of Frank Pietrangelo. 

Frank hadn't played very much all season long and was thrown into, as Mike Lange called it, "A Pressure Cooker Situation" after Tom Barrasso went down with an injury.  This was his first playoff game ever, with his team facing elimination in game 6 of Round 1 versus the New Jersey Devils. 

Pittsburgh had a 1 goal lead going into the third period and Pietrangelo was being abused with shot after shot.  As Slava Fetisov took a shot stick side on Pietrangelo, Peter Stastny came up the glove side with an eye on potting a rebound.  Frank played the initial shot but couldn't hang on and was caught out of the crease as the puck caromed directly to Stastny's stick. Game over? Not quite.

Diving across the goal mouth, Pietrangelo caught the puck in his Heaton-model trapper, gloving Stastny's shot out of mid air, and the Pens hung on for the win.  He then went on to start game 7, shutting out the Devils and helping the Pens march on toward their first Stanley Cup.  "The Save" as it has affectionately become known to Pens fans, will go down as one of the biggest in franchise history.

When Kovalchuk Was Hobby Gold

There was a time when Ilya Kovalchuk was a hockey card darling.  That's not so much the case anymore.  Fast forward about 18 years and his story doesn't seem to have turned out the way a superstar's should.  In fact, since returning to the NHL, his 43 points in 81 games over the last two seasons wasn't even enough to sniff a King's lineup that sat very near the bottom of the Pacific (not the ocean).  He hadn't played a game since Nov. 9th.

On Dec. 16th, after already receiving a $2.65 Million roster bonus, it was announced that he was put on "unconditional waivers" and had left Los Angeles.  I wasn't sure what exactly a UW was but the move was done for the sole purpose of terminating his $18.75 million contract.  The culmination of that is definitely not a celebrated exit for a three-time All Star, six-time 40+goal scorer, and once hockey card superstar.