The Pittsburgh Penguins’ organizational history has a plethora of great players, and we’ve decided to go through the best Penguins’ players to wear each jersey number. Today, we continue the list by naming the best #7 in Penguins’ history.
And this one, by all accounts, was fairly easy. It couldn’t be anyone other than the 500-goal scorer – and one of the best American-born players of all-time – who helped the Penguins go back-to-back in 1991 and 1992: Joe Mullen.
Joe Mullen became the first U.S.-born player to score 500 NHL goals on this day in 1997! pic.twitter.com/UkJUnXN0PJ
NHL (@NHL) March 14, 2022
In fact, Mullen was the first American-born player in NHL history to score 500 goals. This happened on March 14, 1997, during Mullen’s second yet brief stint with the Penguins in 1996-97, which was the final season of his career.
But before that, Mullen helped the Penguins win the first two Cups in franchise history. He was infamously traded to Pittsburgh in the summer of 1990 by the Calgary Flames, who netted only Pittsburgh’s second-round pick in return, which was Nicolas Perreault, who – as it turned out – never played an NHL game.
Undrafted and hailing from Hell’s Kitchen in New York, the fan-favorite Mullen was as much a star in Pittsburgh during his mid-late 30s as he had been in St. Louis and Calgary before. Over the course of his first five seasons in Pittsburgh from 1990-95, Mullen recorded 146 goals and 303 points in 325 games.
He also posted eight goals and 17 playoff points en route to the Penguins winning their first Stanley Cup in ’91 – including two goals in the Cup-clinching Game 6 against the Minnesota North Stars:
Mullen signed a one-year deal with the Boston Bruins as a free agent for the 1995-96 season before returning to Pittsburgh one year later to play out his final NHL season. The right winger was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2000, and he finished his 16-year NHL career with 502 goals and 1,063 points in 1,062 games.
Since his retirement in 1997, he has had coaching stints with both the Penguins’ (2000-06) and the Philadelphia Flyers’ organizations (2006-17).
Honorable mentions: Russ Anderson, Paul Martin, Matt Cullen
Related: Top Five American-born Penguins Players
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