Pre-Lemieux Penguins created some magic moments

It's been 10 years since the Mellon (nee Civic) Arena closed. Big moments have been accordingly reviewed. Most of them involved Mario Lemieux.

But here's one that didn't: On Nov. 22, 1972, the Penguins scored five goals in 2:07. It's an NHL record that still stands.

Bryan Hextall started the explosion at the 12-minute mark. Ron Schock finished it at 14:07. Goals by Jean Pronovost, Al McDonough and Ken Schinkel were sandwiched in-between. The outburst took a 5-4 lead over St. Louis and made it 10-4, which held up as the final score. The Penguins scored seven goals in the third period.

The Penguins made the occasion into a radio commercial featuring the theme from "2001: A Space Odyssey." Roll over, Ric Flair and tell Elvis Presley the news.

The win was the Penguins' fourth straight and put them second in the West Division at 11-9-1. But the Pens finished fifth in the West at season's end, missing the playoffs.

The goalie that night for Pittsburgh: Jim Rutherford. He made 38 saves to get the win.

The attendance was 12,405, just 461 shy of capacity. (There were no balconies yet.) The Blues were the Penguins' biggest rival then.

There was hockey in Pittsburgh before Lemieux. The team wasn't nearly as successful. But the Penguins had their moments.

They won some trophies. Winger Lowell MacDonald won the Masterton in 1972-73. The Masterton is given for "perseverance, dedication and sportsmanship." MacDonald exemplified those qualities when he missed all but 10 games of the prior two seasons because of knee problems but rebounded to get 34 goals and 41 assists in '72-73.

Winger Rick Kehoe got the Lady Byng in 1980-81. The Byng goes to whoever best combines ability and gentlemanly conduct. Kehoe had 55 goals, 33 assists and six penalty minutes. Kehoe had 636 career points, the team record pre-Mario.

The biggest award garnered by a Penguin before Lemieux showed up was the Norris Trophy (best defenseman) won by Randy Carlyle in 1980-81. Carlyle had 16 goals and 67 assists and quarterbacked a power play that scored 92 times. (Kehoe netted 20 if those.) Coach Eddie Johnston, inspired by the NBA's Boston Celtics, had his players run picks on the power play.

Carlyle played solid defense for the Penguins 'til being traded to Winnipeg on March 5, 1984. That deal sent Winnipeg's first-round pick (ninth overall) to Pittsburgh. That choice turned out to be defenseman Doug Bodger. In 1988, Bodger went to Buffalo in a swap that got goalie Tom Barrasso, who helped the Pens win two Stanley Cups. Trades trickle down.

Kehoe's 55-goal season was one of four 50-goal campaigns prior to Lemieux's arrival. Pierre Larouche (53) and Pronovost (52) each topped 50 in 1975-76.

But the most unusual 50-goal season in Penguins history - perhaps in NHL history - was tallied by Mike Bullard.

Bullard could finish. He had 185 goals in 382 games with the Pens.

He scored 51 in 1983-84, the season the Penguins finished dead last in the NHL to get the right to draft Lemieux. There wasn't a single game-winning goal among Bullard's 51. That reflects more on the state of the team, which went 16-58-6, than it does Bullard.

Bullard was involved in another Penguins' specialty of the pre-Mario era: Playoff heartbreak.

Exhibit A is the 1975 post-season, where the Pens wasted a three-games-to-none series lead and were eliminated by the New York Islanders in the quarterfinals. The old Igloo was never more silent than when the Islanders won Game 7, 1-0, on April 26, 1975.

But the Islanders further bedeviled the Penguins in the 1982 playoffs. The visiting Pens held a 3-1 lead with less than six minutes left in Game Five of a best-of-five first round series. But the Islanders rallied to win 4-3 in overtime. Bullard hit the post in OT.

That series was the only time during the Islanders' streak of four straight Stanley Cups from 1980-83 that they were forced to an elimination game. The Islanders won their last nine playoff games in 1982. Only the Penguins pushed them to the brink.

The Penguins' playoff misery in '82 was typical of the early '80s. They also lost first-round series by a three-games-to-two margin to Boston in 1980 and St. Louis in 1981. Game Five of that '81 series ended in double overtime.

There were some good seasons in the '70s. The Penguins had winning records in 1974-75, 1975-76, 1976-77 and 1978-79. Those were the only times they topped .500 pre-Mario. The Pens' best record before Lemieux was 37-28-15 in 1974-75. That team finished third in the Norris Division and scored 326 goals to rank fourth in the NHL.

The Penguins qualified for the playoffs seven times in eight years between 1975 and '82. At the time, that was rarefied air.

Then Mario showed up - not least because Bullard had no game-winners among his 51 goals in 1983-84.

Mark Madden hosts a radio show 3-6 p.m. weekdays on WXDX-FM (105.9).