Mario Lemieux and Sidney Crosby stand alone atop the Pittsburgh Penguins’ list of all-time greats. Both are consensus top five players all time, and Crosby is still adding to his prestigious legacy, approaching Lemieux’s all-time points total of 1723 sometime in the next two seasons.
However, who are the second-best centers of the Penguins’ franchise?
The race for the best No. 2 might seem easy. Evgeni Malkin, right? It’s not quite that simple, as the Penguins have employed a few Hall of Fame centers, and one ranks well ahead of Malkin on the official top 100 list (which infamously snubbed Malkin). We informally polled Penguins insiders and received a split decision.
The final call was close.
The rankings and rules are purely subjective. We first tried to factor in the players’ production with the Penguins, but we also included the totality of their careers on a secondary level.
Top 5 Penguins 2nd Best Centers
5. Syl Apps Jr.
Longtime Penguins observers and those who were around at the time will tell you Apps was a grump on the ice. He played with linemates Lowell MacDonald and Jean Pronovost. In 1971, the Penguins acquired Apps from the New York Rangers for Glen Sather.
In eight seasons with the Penguins, the playmaking center scored 151 goals with 500 points in 495 games, finishing seventh in Hart Trophy voting in 1973-74.
4. Bryan Trottier
One of the missing pieces to Lemieux’s championship quest. Trottier already had a Hall of Fame career with the New York Islanders, winning four Stanley Cups before they cast him aside at the age of 34. He played only three seasons at the end of his career for the Penguins but made an indelible mark as a locker-room character and third-line center, helping rookie Jaromir Jagr find his game.
Trottier was an integral part of and leader in the Penguins’ first Stanley Cup run of 1990-91, which launched the team to back-to-back Stanley Cup championships.
As a Penguins player, he wasn’t one of the all-time best. Still, when factoring his brilliant career with the Islanders (1353 points, 500 goals), in addition to his Penguins contributions, he remains a staple of the Penguins community.
3. Pierre Larouche
An electric center who played less than 300 games with the Penguins at the beginning of his career (1974-1977) before evenly splitting the rest of his career between the New York Rangers (five years) and Montreal Canadiens (five years). After his playing days, he settled into various roles within the Penguins organization.
Larouche also played a couple of seasons with the Hartford Whalers between New York and Montreal. Brass Bonanza!
Larouche could score goals with aplomb, lighting the lamp 395 times in 812 games. He scored 119 goals in 240 games with the Penguins.
2. Ron Francis
We informally polled a few persons inside the Penguins organization and received a split decision. Even the insiders and former players were split on Malkin vs. Ron Francis as the best center behind Lemieux and Crosby.
Francis won three Lady Byng Trophies but, more importantly, was a constant Selke candidate, winning once. Francis also carried the Penguins in Lemieux’s absence, leading the charge after Adam Graves’s villainous two-handed slash broke Lemieux’s wrist during the 1992 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Francis again carried the team after Lemieux retired in following the 1996-97 season. He cracked the 100-point barrier twice, which was a momentous feat in the dead-puck era of the 1990s.
Ultimately, we placed him second because he only played 513 games with the Penguins. During his Pittsburgh tenure, he scored 164 goals and 613 points. Overall, he registered 1798 points with the Hartford Whalers, Pittsburgh Penguins, and the relocated Hartford franchise that became known as the Carolina Hurricanes, retiring as the fifth all-time leading scorer.
The Penguins acquired “Ronnie Franchise” in the greatest trade in Penguins history. At the 1991 NHL trade deadline, former GMCraig Patrick traded John Cullen (an honorable mention on this list), Zarley Zalapski, and Jamie Leach to Hartford for Francis, Ulf Samuelsson, and Grant Jennings.
Two Stanley Cups immediately followed.
1. Evgeni Malkin
It was an agonizing choice between the top two. Malkin has more talent than 99.9% of players who have ever played and carried the team during Sidney Crosby’s numerous absences, especially from 2010 to 2012.
Malkin is generally the most underrated and underappreciated player of the era, infamously being snubbed for the NHL’s Top 100 List, to which Francis was included.
The deciding factor was Malkin’s Penguins career. He has played 1145 games with the Penguins, registering 1296 points and scoring 498 goals. No player of the era could embarrass defenders or simply overpower them quite like Malkin, whose game was equal parts Lemieux and Jagr. The deciding factor for some of our advisors who slipped Malkin to No. 2 was penalty minutes—Malkin is the Penguins’ all-time PIMs leader, but they’re not usually good penalties.
Evgeni Malkin is a surefire Hall of Famer when he hangs up the skates and is easily one of the best players of his generation.
