I was pretty young but more or less, that 89 team was a one-line team. It was Mario on a rampage and everyone else was a passenger. Coffey did his part on the backend and Rob Brown made the most of it. Beyond that, it was ten tonnes of mediocrity. Maybe reminds me of the 2012 team where it was Kunitz-Malkin-Neal and then a bunch of crap. You had Malkin on a rampage, Neal riding shotgun, and Letang doing his thing on the backend.
Come 1990-91, they had made some good trades that really bolstered the quality of the depth. They now had Recchi, Mullen, Stevens, Trottier, a rookie Jagr (who was potting as many points as a 18yo as anyone on the 89 team not named Mario or Brown). Then they made the Francis trade. That REALLY solidified the forward group. Cullen was good but I never thought he had that "oomphf", ya know? Francis was a whole different ballgame. That's like going from Staal as your 2C to Bergeron.
You also had Badger Bob Johnson as the head coach which helped a lot too. I can't remember who the 89 coach was Badger Bob was as much of a star on that 91 team as anyone. Think Sullivan circa 2016/17. He was the perfect personality and coach for that team at that time.
Those late 80s and early 90s teams were fun to follow. It started to get tough after Mario left. Up until 97-98, they still made awesome player-for-player trades. They never really solved goaltending, though. After Mario left, it got tougher. They were a top 6 plus shit team. Mario's coming back helped the forward group a ton, but everything else was still mediocre at best. Tough for them to compete against the higher salary roll teams. 2001 was still a heart break for me and I wish it would have ended different for that team but we did get to see Bourque raise the cup which was an all-time hockey moment. Tough to stay if I would give that moment up for another Pens cup.
