Recently I wrote about Sergei Zubov and Bryan Smolinski, two players who appeared in only one season, albeit laudable, with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1995-96. It got me thinking about others who did the same, and it reminded me of two prominent NHLers who also were one-time Penguins whose time in Pittsburgh is not often talked about nowadays. Those two players were Luc Robitaille and Zigmund Palffy.
As I said, Robitaille and Palffy are far from obscure players, as is now the case with Smolinski. But nowadays their time in Pittsburgh is likely to be overlooked by anyone who wasn’t a fan at the time. It also didn’t help that their contributions were muted by the overall lack of success the team had.
Before They Were Penguins
To start, Luc Robitaille is arguably the greatest late-round draft pick in NHL history. Overlooked by scouts because of his lack of foot speed, Robitaille was famously the Los Angeles Kings’ ninth-round pick, 171st overall, in the 1984 Draft. He defied expectations and scored 45 goals, 84 points, as a rookie en route to a Calder Trophy as the NHL’s best rookie, an All-Rookie and a second-team All-Star berth.
For an encore, Robitaille scored 53 goals then went on a run of 46, 52, 45, 44, 63, and 44 goals. In his first eight seasons he eclipsed the 100-point plateau four times and was a league All-Star seven times, five first-team and two second-team. Those 63 goals he scored in 1992-93 were an NHL record for a left wing that stood until some guy named Alex Ovechkin came along and topped it. However, the 125 points Robitaille scored that year are still the record 30 years on.
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As for Palffy, he was a second-round pick by the New York Islanders. He eased into NHL play on a team that was tumbling in the standings, before emerging as a star in his own right. His breakout year was 1995-96, when he scored 43 goals, 17 on the power play, and 87 points for a team that won only 22 games with a logo resembling the Gorton’s fisherman on their chest.
After that, Palffy settled into the role of underappreciated superstar. He scored 48 goals, 90 points, in 1997-98 and 45 goals, 87 points, for an Islanders team that would find itself well out of playoff contention. Despite playing in an All-Star Game only once as an Islander, Palffy found himself among stars like Teemu Selanne, John LeClair, and Ron Francis.
Palffy played parts of six years on Long Island before moving to the Kings, where he played five seasons, three of which with Robitaille. After the trade that sent Palffy to Los Angeles, the Islanders still wallowed outside the playoffs, but it did help the Kings reach the postseason. Despite not scoring 40 goals as a King, Palffy scored better than a point-per-game in all but one of his seasons in Los Angeles, picking up as many as 85 twice, and played in two All-Star Games.
Robitaille and Palffy As Penguins
After a disappointing 1993-94 season where the Kings missed the playoffs in spite of Robitaille’s 44 goals, the left wing moved to Pittsburgh as part of the deal that sent Rick Tocchet west. Robitaille joined an impressive arsenal of wingers, which included Jaromir Jagr, Tomas Sandstrom, Joe Mullen, Kevin Stevens, Shawn McEachern, and even Martin Straka, who would head to Ottawa at the 1995 Trade Deadline.
Though Mario Lemieux sat out the lockout-shortened 1995 season, the Penguins still had Francis and John Cullen to set up their talented linemates. For his part, Robitaille fit right in and scored three goals, six points, through his first five games on his new team. His best game came against the Hartford Whalers on Feb. 16, 1995, as Robitaille scored four of the Penguins’ five goals en route to a 5-2 victory, giving Pittsburgh a 12-0-1 record at the time.
He finished the season with 23 goals in 46 games, another 40-goal pace, but his 19 assists and 42 points put him below a point-per-game pace for the first time in his career. That was a trend that took a few seasons for him to correct. In the playoffs, Robitaille tallied seven goals, 11 points, in 12 games as the Penguins fell in the second round to the eventual Stanley Cup champion New Jersey Devils in five games.
With Palffy, he joined the Penguins as a free agent in Aug. 2005. The plan at the time was to surround rookie Sidney Crosby with as many capable veterans to smooth his transition to the NHL. Joining them were Lemieux, LeClair, and Mark Recchi, who left at the 2006 Trade Deadline to win the Stanley Cup with the Carolina Hurricanes.
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The plan was spotty. Crosby delivered as advertised, but both Lemieux and Palffy were sidelined with injuries in what proved to be the last NHL action for both. Palffy, who had a history of shoulder injuries, played only 42 games but did manage a point-per-game with 11 goals and 31 assists for 42 points.
Life After Pittsburgh
Robitaille’s one season as a Penguin fell in the middle of his career. Immediately after that he played two disappointing (by his standards) seasons for the New York Rangers before rejoining the Kings. There he reignited his scoring touch and scored 30 goals three-straight seasons, even in the Dead Puck Era. As Palffy’s linemate, and Smolinski’s teammate, in 2001, Robitaille was a second-team All-Star, and the Kings eliminated the Detroit Red Wings in the first round of the playoffs.
The next season he joined the fabled 2001-02 Red Wings and won the Stanley Cup. After two seasons with Detroit, he finished his career by joining the Kings for a third time. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame with Red Wings teammates Steve Yzerman and Brett Hull in 2009, and in 2017 Robitaille was included with them as one of the NHL’s Greatest 100 Players. Not bad for a 171st pick.
Palffy’s NHL story may have ended in 2006, but his playing career didn’t end there. He returned to Slovakia and played for HL 36 Skalica, where he led the team in scoring five times in six seasons, sitting out 2010-11. Palffy did represent Slovakia in the 2010 Winter Olympics, scoring three points (all assists) in seven games as his team lost to Finland in the bronze-medal game. He retired after the 2012-13 season.
Though his totals pale in comparison to Robitaille’s, Palffy’s 712 points in 684 games, mostly during the Dead Puck Era, make him a candidate for an NHL All-Underrated team, if there were one. For his 415 points in 240 games in the Slovak league to go along with gold with Slovakia at the 2002 World Championships and bronze in 2003, Palffy was inducted into the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) Hall of Fame in 2019.
And though their time with the Penguins was brief and they both saw greater success elsewhere, both Luc Robitaille and Zigmund Palffy are part of the team’s legacy and should not be forgotten.
