The Penguins\u2019 new Hall of Fame class is, predictably, excellent. It\u2019s a champagne franchise.<\/p>\n
Marc-Andre Fleury won three Stanley Cups, is the Penguins\u2019 best goalie ever and arguably the team\u2019s most popular player ever. (Except for a few seasons when the fans scapegoated Fleury, but that\u2019s been forgotten.)<\/p>\n
Jim Rutherford won two Cups as a deal-making GM, and has the roots of having played for the team from 1971-74. Rutherford was the goaltender of my childhood.<\/p>\n
Larry Murphy might be as underrated as a Hockey Hall-of-Fame defenseman can be. Fundamentally perfect and a puck-mover with few peers, Murphy won two Cups with the Penguins and two with Detroit.<\/p>\n
The late Jack McGregor was the founding owner. Ground zero.<\/p>\n
But the Penguins have a level above their Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s retired numbers.<\/p>\n
Those can be an overrated phenomenon and can turn clumsy.<\/p>\n
The Montreal Canadiens have retired 15 numbers, leaving their current roster to wear the digits of a roller hockey team: Too many numbers in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. Untraditional, especially for such a storied franchise.<\/p>\n
The Penguins have kept retired numbers in check.<\/p>\n
So far.<\/p>\n
Two obvious choices in Mario Lemieux\u2019s 66 and Jaromir Jagr\u2019s 68, plus the No. 21 worn by the late Michel Briere. Briere died after his rookie season, 1969-70, as the result of a car accident.<\/p>\n
Looking ahead, Sidney Crosby\u2019s 87 and Evgeni Malkin\u2019s 71 are clear picks.<\/p>\n
But how about after that?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m inclined to cut it off there, at least based on current evidence. Maintain exclusivity.<\/p>\n
But the Penguins won\u2019t.<\/p>\n
The Penguins are currently a nostalgia franchise. It\u2019s what they sell.<\/p>\n
The best player at the next level is Fleury.<\/p>\n
Fleury sold out an exhibition game at PPG Paints Arena before last season by way of playing a period to say good-bye and cap off his career. He\u2019s coming back again this season when the new Penguins Hall-of-Fame inductees get honored before the Nov. 14 home game vs. Ottawa.<\/p>\n
Fleury is beloved. He\u2019s a draw.<\/p>\n
His No. 29 will absolutely be raised to the ceiling at PPG Paints Arena, almost totally for the right reasons. (Maybe there could be a footnote mentioning Phil Bourque.)<\/p>\n
But does retiring Fleury\u2019s number open the floodgates for, say, Tom Barrasso, Paul Coffey, Ron Francis, Kris Letang and Murphy? (Coffey would be a definite except he played just five seasons in Pittsburgh.)<\/p>\n
Every time the bar is lowered, more people fit under it.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s nothing wrong with retiring a lot of numbers.<\/p>\n
But it lumps in Lemieux, Jagr, Crosby and Malkin with a lot who aren\u2019t close. It makes the honor more generic.<\/p>\n
It also sells tickets and creates hype for a franchise that hasn\u2019t won a playoff series since 2018.<\/p>\n
So, make space in the rafters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Penguins\u2019 new Hall of Fame class is, predictably, excellent. It\u2019s a champagne franchise. Marc-Andre Fleury won three…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":828698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-828697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=828697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/828698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=828697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=828697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=828697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}