Penguins Preview: Two Autographed John Cullen Cards

(team, Lemieux and product links go to sponsored Amazon products, player links go to related pages on my blog, news links go to source pages)

This will likely be the preface to all of this year's Season Preview posts: Unlike in the distant past where I would post different texts on my personal blog (here) and my collectibles blog, I've been using a new format for the past couple of years, where I'll copy the same text on each one. As a father of two young kids, I just do not have enough time to write two separate posts per day on each blog. This year again, the entire scope of the analysis will take place first and the featured player will have a direct or perhaps indirect connection to what's written, below.

Caveats: At this point, despite training camp being set to start in a little over a week, several players haven't found a team yet, (at least) three star players have active trade requests, and a few clubs are currently above the salary cap, which means there is much left to do.

Key exits: Anthony Mantha (RW), Stuart Skinner (G), Kevin Hayes (RW), Parker Wotherspoon (D), Connor Clifton (D), Noel Acciari (C), Ryan Shea (D), Jack St. Ivany (D), Joona Koppanen (LW), Bokondji Imama (LW).

Key arrivals: Kaedan Korczak (D), Nick Robertson (LW), Hendrix Lapierre (C), Andrei Kuzmenko (LW), Trevor van Riemsdyk (D), Declan Carlile (D)

Top prospects: Will Horcoff (LW, 19), Liam Ruck (RW, 20), Harrison Brunicke (D, 20), Rutger McGroarty (RW/LW, 22), Bill Zonnon (C, 19), Sergei Murashov (G, 22), Owen Pickering (D, 22).

xxx

What makes their odds look good:
The team still has its trio of three-time Stanley Cup champions in Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang, in addition to multiple-Norris winner Erik Karlsson, around which GM Kyle Dubas is adding youth and rebuilding its skill level.

Question marks: xxx

Outlook:
This team will battle for a wild card spot until the end on the basis of their talent level, but would require a miracle to make a deep playoff run the likes of which management expects (and top three stars want to bookend their careers with).

Prediction:
7th in the Metropolitan Division.

There is a common misconception about John Cullen's time with the Penguins, that he owes his point production to Mario Lemieux playing with him and feeding him easy points on a platter, but the truth is that Cullen was mostly active in replacing Lemieux during his stint on long-term injured reserve. In his rookie season, Cullen posted 49 points in 79 games, but as Lemieux missed 21 games the following season with a back injury, Cullen took his place on the top line with Kevin Stevens on his left and Rob Brown or Mark Recchi on his right, producing to the tune of 92 points in 72 games.

Most players on that squad, however, had terrible defensive numbers, with Hall of Famer Paul Coffey showing the worst plus/minus at -25 and Lemieux trailing him at -18 in 59 games (but 45 goals, 78 assists and 123 points as a counter-argument. Cullen himself was -13, tied with Stevens.

In 1990-91, with rookie Jaromir Jagr in tow, the Pens started having Stanley Cup aspirations and knew they had to get better defensively, but also to add an edge to their game, and they did so by sending Cullen, powerpplay quarterback Zarley Zalapski and hard-nosed grinder Jeff Parker to the Hartford Whalers for captain and unquestioned leader Ron Francis, one of the game's dirtiest players ever in Ulf Samuelsson, and Grant Jennings, changing the entire makeup of the team. For his part, Cullen's 16 points (8 goals and 8 assists) in 13 games compensated for part of Francis' contribution, and his following season's 77 points (26 goals, 51 assists) in 77 games were not to shabby either, but in making that trade, the Whalers were hoping to bring their own team up to the level of the two best teams in the division, the Boston Bruins and Montréal Canadiens, which was decidedly not the case.

On November 24th, 1992, the Whalers decided to cut their losses and dealt an injured Cullen to the Toronto Maple Leafs for a second-round pick, a month and a half into the season. He actually wore a neck brace/protector for much of his time with the Leafs, then went back to Pittsburgh for one year (37 points in 46 games playing behind Francis in the last season before the beginning of the Dead Puck Era).

With Lemieux eyeing a return for 1995-96, Francis still in town and the likes of Petr Nedved and Bryan Smolinki getting acquired via trade over the summer, Cullen's time with the Pens was coming to an end, and the Tampa Bay Lightning came calling at the right moment to offer him the 2C job behind oft-forgotten point-per-game-producer Brian Bradley. As Bradley was replaced by Chris Gratton, Cullen kept producing, with seasons of 50 and 55 points in Tampa before terrible news broke...

After two months of coughing with what he thought was an intense flu or cold, his wife convinced him to reach out to team doctors, who found a black mass in his lungs: Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. During treatment, while in-hospital, he even suffered cardiac arrest, but after an 18-month fight and rehabilitation, he attempted a comeback that lasted 4 NHL games with the Lightning and 6 games with the IHL's Cleveland Lumberjacks, including a league-record seven-point game against the Chicago Wolves (a 7-3 win). His comeback attempt won him the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy for the 1998-99 season. It was around that time that the NHL initiated the Hockey Fights Cancer program.

All this being said, this is how I remember him most, wearin g the Pens' black (away) uniform with the alternate captain's "A", as seen on card #232 from Pro Set's 1990-91 Series 1 collection:

He was such an important player for the Pens that he seemingly also wore the captain's "C" on at least one occasion (which could have been during training camp), as seen on card #20 from O-Pee-Chee's 1990-91 OPC Premier set:

While both cards were clearly not signed with the same sharpie (both black, but one thin and one thicker), they did come at the same session, at a card show in Georgia in the early 00s.