Penguins Cup Chronicles: Scotty Bowman

Scotty Bowman had only been on the job for a few days when his advice for general manager Craig Patrick at the 1990 NHL Draft proved to be important.

The Penguins and New York Islanders were in pursuit of veteran right wing Joe Mullen, with both teams offering a third-round draft choice. But the Islanders' pick was 48th overall, while the Penguins had No. 61.

”I made the suggestion, ‘Craig, I think we should give a second,' “ Bowman recalled this week. “It sounds like it's a lot because of his age, but if we get a couple years out of him, I said, well, our scouting staff, we have to find a guy that's going to replace the guy that we traded for him.' (Mullen) came in and was tremendous.”

The Penguins sent their second-round pick to Calgary in a move that paid off handsomely for the Penguins. Mullen scored 17 goals in the regular season and another eight in the playoffs, as the Penguins won their first Stanley Cup.

That was No. 6 for Bowman, who had already earned five Stanley Cup rings as coach of the Montreal Canadiens in the 1970s.

Bowman had known Patrick dating to junior hockey, and he developed a good relationship with coach Bob Johnson as well.

Bowman did advance scouting for the Penguins on some of their big trades that season. He scouted Minnesota before the Penguins acquired Larry Murphy and Peter Taglianetti in December. He also spent time in Hartford, which eventually traded Ron Francis and Ulf Samuelsson in a blockbuster that helped to reshape the Penguins.

”Probably the trade to acquire Francis and Samuelsson, if that didn't happen,” Bowman said, “I doubt if we could have reached our Cup win.”

Quoting Scotty Bowman

On getting back into hockey management:

I had coached Craig Patrick in junior in Montreal when he came up from Boston as a teenager, and I got to know him and I got know his dad, of course, I went to St. Louis because his father was the manager. I went to television in 1987. I wasn't that anxious to move; I had three or four kids in high school. I had interviews for a couple jobs before, but they were always, I didn't really think that they were that solid of a team or franchise. So I got a call that summer from Craig Patrick and, actually, he offered me a chance to come back into the game and I wouldn't have to leave Buffalo. I was going to be director of player personnel. They had just hired Bob Johnson to be the coach, so it wasn't like I'd have to go and coach or anything. It made a lot of sense to me to go back, and my medical had run out with the Buffalo Sabres. So that's another reason, I had a chance to get my medical plan back in operation. The NHL had a very good plan. But that was just another segment of it. But a chance to go back and work and travel, but at the same time, though, I could be back in my home base, not every night, but a lot of the nights, you know. That was appealing to me.

On his role with the Penguins:

It was only about a three-and-a-half hour drive to go over to Pittsburgh. I went to training camp. I'd make trips into Pittsburgh to talk with Craig and go over reports, improving the scouting department. He wanted me to help in that area, so it was mostly in the area of recruitment and scouting.

On an increased role in the postseason:

In the playoffs, (Patrick) asked me to travel with the team. That was a lot of fun. I got along very well with Bob Johnson, and Barry Smith had coached for me previously in Buffalo, so he was one of the assistants for Bob Johnson. It was a good atmosphere. I talked with Bob Johnson during the playoffs. It was a good sounding board for him, I guess, so we got along pretty good.

On the Penguins' defense:

We needed to get some different type of defensemen. We had (Paul) Coffey, but we didn't have anybody like, our defense was more stay-at-home type with some high-powered forwards. So Craig sent me out on a scouting trip prior to the deadline, a couple weeks before the deadline. We wanted to look at different areas.

On acquiring Larry Murphy and Peter Taglianetti from Minnesota:

The first trade we made, we traded two defensemen, we traded Jimmie Johnson and (Chris) Dahlquist. He sent me to Minnesota, and I saw Minnesota for a few games. He wanted me to look at (Larry) Murphy, and I came back, and I said, well, he's probably what our team really needs, because he's a puck mover. He's going to help our forwards. That was a good trade because we got (Peter) Taglianetti and Murphy, and the other two were pretty good, but they were a different type; they weren't really offense.

On acquiring Gordie Roberts from St. Louis:

Gordie Roberts, St. Louis had sent him down, and we were really trying to upgrade our defense. Our defense was not close to our forwards, so I went into the International League. I went to a weekend series, and Gordie was by far the best defenseman. He'd been an experienced NHL defenseman. So I came back into Pittsburgh and met with Craig, and I said, you know, there's a guy in Peoria that I'm sure that St. Louis doesn't have plans for. And I said we should try to get him. He came in and he was a terrific player for us for two years. He just hit it off; Bob Johnson liked him. We needed that experience. You look at the way we upgraded our defense, we got Roberts, Murphy and Samuelsson, and they were three of our top guys going into the playoffs.

On adding Jiri Hrdina from Calgary:

We talked about it, but I didn't go and see him play. That was just an easy pickup, because we wanted to get somebody, (Jaromir) Jagr was really a good player for his age, but he was young, you know. He was from the Czech Republic, and he didn't speak much English. (Hrdina) was another centerman that was experienced and had been on a Cup winner. Bob Johnson did a terrific job shuffling these players around, using different ones. That was a big part of our win.

On adding Scott Young from Hartford:

That was another trade that Craig made. Young had played in college hockey, Johnson knew him. Bob had a lot of input into that trade, as I recall, because he had played on some national (teams); he was a well-scouted, U.S.-developed player. Bob was very up on those kind of players.

On the Penguins' Stanley Cup potential:

You know, it was a big surprise. I knew Bob Johnson was a terrific coach. He molded that team very quickly. There was a lot of components that were pretty good players, but they gave up a lot of goals. They weren't really solid defensively, and I think his coaching, the way he coached — we had to bring in a lot of players — he had to mold them. He didn't have a stand-pat lineup. If you look at the lineup we had in July or August and look at what we had in March, it was significantly different. He was a fantastic molder of talent. (Kevin) Stevens, he developed those guys.

On acquiring Joey Mullen over the summer:

Getting Joey Mullen was a heck of a pickup, too. What happened is, Mullen was in Calgary. Calgary promised Mullen that if a deal came up, he wanted to get back to the U.S.A. We were talking with Calgary, and the manager was Cliff Fletcher, I'd known him. ... Johnson had known him. We were kind of lucky because Johnson had known, the trades we made, most of them he knew from being the U.S. national coach.

On adding Bryan Trottier as a free agent:

That was more Craig. He knew Trottier from the Islanders. We made a lot of good moves. They all seemed to work out, you know?

On Tom Barrasso:

I was surprised when Buffalo traded him to Pittsburgh. He was still young. He came in very young, came in at 18, won the Rookie and won the Vezina. I don't know, Buffalo was getting desperate. Barrasso was not old when he was traded. Tommy was an underrated goalie. He played terrific those three years I was with the Penguins; he was solid. We were still a great offensive team, and we gave up chances.

On what stands out the most 20 years later:

Obviously, Mario had health issues. It was not easy the fact that he had real tough surgery on his back. He had to come back in and really play well for us to win. I think it was more the balance, the way the team acquired so many players. We were so strong down the middle. When you really think about it, Lemieux, Francis and Trottier. We were so strong down the middle, and then you move down to the defense, and you had a real top-notch defense. We were strong down the middle, there's no question about that. We had the role players, we had (Bob) Errey, we had (Phil) Bourque, we had (Troy) Loney. We had a lot of good foot soldiers. Having a Lemieux and a Francis back-to-back was really something.