Mario Lemieux

Mario Lemieux, OC, CQ ( born October 5, 1965 in Montreal ) is a former Canadian professional ice hockey player who played from 1984 to 1997 and from 2000 to 2006 for the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League. In addition to Wayne Gretzky, Bobby Orr and Gordie Howe, he is considered one of the best North American ice hockey player of all time.

At a rate of 0.823 goals per NHL game, he was at the time of his first career end in 1997 as the most effective attacker League history. After the final withdrawal in 2006 he finished in third place ( 0.754 ) in the eternal ranking, only Mike Bossy ( 0.762 ) and Cy Denneny ( 0.756 ) were more successful. Due to his outstanding performance, he was also known as Super Mario or Le Magnifique.

3.1 International

4.1 International

Career

Youth

Mario Lemieux played in 1979 at the Montreal Hurricanes in a junior league in his native Quebec. The following year he went to Montreal Concordia on the ice and left it there already flashed his extraordinary skill as he reached 62 goals and 62 assists in 47 games. In 1981, he joined the prestigious Junior League LHJMQ, where he played for the Laval Voisins. After he had achieved in its first year, 96 points, he was able to double the following season the points yield almost. Due to his outstanding performance in the 1983/84 season in which he had set up with 282 points a never surpassed league record and was also awarded as the best player in the CHL, he was selected by the Pittsburgh Penguins as a whole first of the NHL Entry Draft in 1984.

The Pittsburgh Penguins were for some years among the worst teams in the league and the team stood several times in front of a relocation to another city, as it allows the team financially was not particularly good. Pittsburgh was contacted after the draft of the many teams that tried everything to Mario Lemieux was the foretold a great future, lure of the Penguins. But the management was adamant, and kicked each offer. They hoped that Lemieux would lead the team from the depths of the table top. You should not be disappointed.

First years in Pittsburgh

Mario Lemieux sat in his first NHL game a character. In his first game, six seconds after his first Substitutes, he scored with his first shot equal to his first goal. During the 1984/85 season he was also first elected to the NHL All-Star Game and received the award as All-Star Game MVP. At the end of the season he had 100 points to his credit and was awarded the Calder Memorial Trophy as the best rookie in the NHL. The Penguins he could not get out of the basement table, but the year a first step towards improvement was.

1985/86 he improved his record to 141 points, a second place in the scorer list behind Wayne Gretzky, who set a NHL record with 215 points. Nevertheless, Lemieux received after the season the Lester B. Pearson Award as the best player of the season as voted by the players of the NHL. But the Penguins still had to wait for a part in the playoffs.

The next season, Lemieux missed 17 games injured and could not come close to the performance of the previous year. But the first really big highlight of his career waiting for him in the summer of 1987, when he participated with the Canadian National Team at the Canada Cup. There he managed to finally breakthrough as a superstar when he scored the winning goal in the final against the USSR 86 seconds before the end of the third and decisive game, after a presentation by Wayne Gretzky. With 18 points, he was behind Gretzky 's second best scorer with eleven goals and top scorer of the tournament.

Leadership figure and superstar

In the few months later, beginning 1987/88 season Lemieux led the Penguins for the first time as a team captain, but the team missed the playoffs again. Lemieux could but, favored by an injury to Wayne Gretzky, winning for the first time the Art Ross Trophy as the best scorer and was first awarded the Hart Memorial Trophy as most valuable player in the NHL. Added to this was his second Lester B. Pearson Award.

1988/89 losing streak for the Penguins had finally ended and we qualified for the playoffs. Lemieux did in the regular season, the best performance of his career with 199 points and was thus the decisive factor for the first small success of the team. In addition to that Lemieux scored 50 goals in 50 games and thereby created something that has previously only Maurice Richard, Mike Bossy and Wayne Gretzky managed.

However, the following season was once again a step backwards for the team, as Lemieux was handicapped by a back injury do only 59 games. That he still scored 123 points, testifying of his outstanding class.

Stanley Cup years

In the 1990/91 season, his back injury developed into a herniated disc. He missed the team for a long time, but as the team with players like Bryan Trottier, Larry Murphy and Ron Francis has been upgraded and also young players like Jaromir Jagr and Mark Recchi had in its ranks, made it the " Pens " still in the playoffs. There she attracted led by Lemieux one to the Stanley Cup final and met on the Minnesota North Stars. After six games Mario Lemieux could lift for the first time the Stanley Cup in the air and also won the Conn Smythe Trophy as MVP of the playoffs.

Also in the 1991/92 season he missed several games due to injury, but he won the Art Ross Trophy as the best scorer. In the playoffs, his injury problems remained loyal, but in the end he held yet again the Stanley Cup in his hands. And again he won the Conn Smythe Trophy. The Penguins had survived both the semi-finals and the finals unbeaten.

Cancer and comeback

After the successes of the past two years, Lemieux was awarded in the 1992/93 season a major blow, as at his Hodgkin's disease was diagnosed in January 1993. He underwent radiation treatment and returned after two months back on the ice. In January, he led the scorers list, but now Pat LaFontaine had passed by twelve points at him. The Penguins schwächelten without Lemieux, but with his return, they stabilized again. 17 games in a row won the team and Lemieux began the comeback in the scorers list at LaFontaine. The Penguins were at the end of the regular season for the first time topped the league and Mario Lemieux had 160 points with twelve points more to his credit than its competitor Pat LaFontaine. Disappointing but went to the playoffs, because the awaited third Stanley Cup victory failed to materialize and it failed in the second round.

Injury Plagued Mario Lemieux was only 22 games of the season 1993/94 contest and announced that he would be sidelined the entire 1994/95 season, as he wanted to recover from his back injury and cancer treatment is complete. Rumors started rolling so that he would end his career.

But he returned in the autumn of 1995 back in the NHL and continued his services which he had shown in previous years. He led the Penguins with 161 points in the playoffs, where he also stood out with 27 points in 18 games, but failed the Penguins in the semifinals in a competitive series against the Florida Panthers until the decisive seventh game. Lemieux was the third time honored as Most Valuable Player, earned his fourth Lester B. Pearson Award as the best player and won his fifth Art Ross Trophy as the best scorer.

First withdrawal

For the sixth time he has won this trophy in the 1996/97 season. During the season, speculation came again, that he would soon end his career and this time even cope. In the playoffs, the Penguins failed already in the first round to the Philadelphia Flyers and after the game, he received applause from all fans when he said goodbye to them. In the summer of 1997, he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Normally, a player can get this honor until three years after his career ended, but for a few players in NHL history who have shown particularly outstanding achievements, the waiting time has been circumvented. Lemieux was one of those few players. The Penguins hung a banner in his honor with his shirt number 66 in the Hockey Arena, bringing the number to any player of the team could be awarded more.

Team owners and players

The Pittsburgh Penguins, it was always financially worse after Lemieuxs End of career. The team was peppered throughout the nineties with many big stars who also received appropriate salaries. Due to the financial problems caused by the fact it happened that managing the stars of the team asked to defer salary payments, and general manager Craig Patrick was forced to give up key players. In 1999, the team finally had to file for bankruptcy. Mario Lemieux submitted to the bankruptcy court a plan how the team should be restructured so that it could continue to operate. He bought the team in the fall of 1999 and became the new owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

One of the main reasons why the court agreed to his plan was the point, that all creditors, in which the team was in debt, should get their money. And actually settled the Penguins all debts.

On December 27, 2000 Mario Lemieux created a sensation. About three years after his resignation, he was, after there had been rumors for some time, his comeback in the NHL with the Pittsburgh Penguins and was thus the first player simultaneously, the NHL team is one for which he plays. 33 seconds on the ice he had already achieved his first point after the scorer comeback when he was preparing a goal. He had in this game still a goal and an assist to follow and pointed it to know that he had hardly lost any of his skills as a scorer something. After the season he had 76 points on the board and was nominated in 43 games for the Hart Memorial Trophy as MVP and the Lester B. Pearson Award as the best player.

But not only his achievements as top scorer stopped, but also its susceptibility to injury. In the 2001 /02 season he was captain of the Canadian National Team at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Under his leadership, the team eventually won the gold medal in the final against the United States. However, after the Olympic tournament, he had to finish the season for health reasons.

Olympic champion

2002/03, he missed only 15 games, finishing in eighth place in the scorer list with 91 points. But the Penguins had arrived in the basement of the table after the successful nineties again. This was due to the financial situation of the Penguins, the Stars could not afford any expensive and mainly relied on cheap players and young talents.

In the 2003 / 04 season, Lemieux was again struggling with injury and completed only ten games. In the summer of 2004, he joined with the Canadian National Team at the World Cup of Hockey, the team was able to win the. In six games, he scored a goal and prepared four before.

At the same time already running negotiations between the NHL, the team and the game union National Hockey League Players' Association NHLPA about a new Collective Bargaining Agreement ( CBA), a kind of collective agreement. It threatened that he is embroiled in a conflict of interest. Was he the one owner of a team, he was on the other side with the players. Since he was a team owner, although he was no longer a member of the NHLPA, he still continue to pay contributions and his salary of 1.4 million U.S. dollars, which corresponded to the league average, he was also approved by the NHLPA. On the other hand, it contained also his vote at meetings of the team owner. In the negotiations for a CBA, which led to the start of the season was pushed further suggested Lemieux before that you should adapt the content to the rules of the National Football League, which has a strict salary cap. Along with Wayne Gretzky, who was now co-owner of the Phoenix Coyotes, he asked the parties together again to prevent a final cancellation of the 2004/05 season. But the meeting did not return, and the season was completely canceled in February 2005.

After the lockout ended in summer 2005, Lemieux returned for the 2005/ 06 season back on the ice. The team held out hopes, because it was favored by the new salary cap, because rich teams could no longer hold countless stars in its ranks because they were allowed to spend only a certain amount of money for salaries. Added to this was with the 18- year-old Sidney Crosby a great talent into the team, which was first sold as a new Wayne Gretzky or Mario Lemieux before the NHL Entry Draft in 2005. Historically, it was the game against the New York Islanders on 3 November 2005, in which Crosby was able to achieve the only goal in NHL history for a direct assisted by Lemieux. Lemieux took Crosby to live with him at home until he had settled in Pittsburgh. Other young players were housed in previous years, for the first time with Mario Lemieux and his family.

Second resignation

On 24 February 2006, Mario Lemieux announced that he ended his career for good. With now 40 years he could still achieve 22 points in 26 games, but he had problems with the pace in the NHL, that was caused by only recently introduced rules. On 3 November 2005, he pushed the game against the New York Islanders the sixth of his career and at the same time last Assist the only direct pass to super rookie Sidney Crosby in the only interaction between the generations. Less than a month later forced him physical problems, including the so-called atrial fibrillation, a type of abnormal heart rhythm to his second and final resignation. After the end of his career he stood with 1723 points in only 915 games in seventh place of the all-time best list in the NHL, he occupied this place even today. But above all, its quota of 1.88 points per game shows its outstanding status in the history of the NHL, only Wayne Gretzky may have an even better value with 1.92 points per game. Both are with clear distance ahead of third-place finisher Marcel Dionne in these statistics.

Sale of the Penguins

Eight months later, on 5 October 2006 Lemieux explained that he had agreed with the co-owners of the Penguins, to sell the team to one of the boards of directors of Research In Motion, Jim Balsillie. But Balsillie stepped back from buying on 15 December, after the NHL had given him as a support that the team until 2013 should not be resettled. Five days later there was Lemieux and the Penguins another disappointment, as the gaming company Isle of Capri Casinos had received a license for the state of Pennsylvania. Isle of Capri Casinos would have built a new hockey arena, which was necessary for the Penguins can be held in Pittsburgh.

Lemieux met in the following months with representatives of the city of Pittsburgh and the State of Pennsylvania, to negotiate the construction of a new arena and but also traveled to other cities to find out prospects for a possible relocation of the team. The negotiations for a new arena progressed slowly and the beginning of March 2007, the breakdown of the talks was announced. But only shortly afterwards came the turn and you still reached yet an agreement for a financial plan, which guarantees the whereabouts of the Penguins in Pittsburgh for 30 years and the construction of a new hockey arena includes.

Private life

Mario Lemieux is married to his childhood sweetheart Nathalie Asselin since June 26, 1993. Together they have four children. It is located in Sewickley, a wealthy suburb of Pittsburgh. His older brother Alain was also active as a player in the NHL.

Awards and achievements

Internationally

Career Stats

Internationally

Represented Canada at:

U20 World Junior Championships 1983
World Cup 1985
Canada Cup 1987
Winter Olympics 2002
World Cup of Hockey 2004

( Key to Career statistics: Sp or GP = Games Played, T or G = goals scored, V or A = achieved assists; Pts or Pts = scored points scorer, SM or PIM = received penalty minutes, / - = Plus / Minus balance sheet; PP = scored majority gates; SH = scored shorthanded goals, GW = achieved victory gates; Play-downs/Relegation 1 )

NHL Records

NHL Most shorthanded goals in a season (13, 1988/89)
NHL Most Goals in one-third ( 4 26 January, 1997), together with Busher Jackson (1934 ), Max Bentley (1943 ), Clinth Smith ( 1945), Red Berendson (1968 ), Wayne Gretzky (1981 ), Grant Mulvey ( 1982), Bryan Trottier (1982 ), Al Secord (1987 ), Joe Nieuwendyk (1989 ), Peter Bondra (1994 )
NHL record Involved in 57.3 % of his team's goals in the season 1988-1989, the highest percentage in NHL history
NHL All-Star Game Most goals in total (13 ), along with Wayne Gretzky
NHL All-Star Game Most points in a game (6 ( 3 goals 3 assists ), 1988 )
NHL All-Star Game Most MVP awards (3 ), along with Wayne Gretzky
NHL Playoffs Most Goals in one-third ( 4, April 25, 1989), along with Tim Kerr (13 April 1985)
NHL Playoffs Most Goals in a game (5, April 25, 1989), together with Newsy Lalonde, Maurice Richard, Darryl Sittler and Reggie Leach
NHL Playoffs Most points in one-third ( 4)
Pittsburgh Penguins Most games ( 915 )
Pittsburgh Penguins most goals ( 690 )
Pittsburgh Penguins Most Assists ( 1033 )
Pittsburgh Penguins Most points (1723 )
Pittsburgh Penguins Most goals in a season (85, 1988/89)
Pittsburgh Penguins Most assists in a season (114, 1988/89)
Pittsburgh Penguins Most points in a season (199, 1988/89 )
Pittsburgh Penguins Most goals in a game ( 5 times)
Pittsburgh Penguins Most assists in a game ( 6, three times, along with Ron Stackhouse (8 March 1975) and Greg Malone (28 November 1979) )
Pittsburgh Penguins Most points in a game (8, twice: on 15 October 1988 ( 2 goals 6 assists) and 31 December 1988 ( 5 goals and 3 assists ) )
The only player to reach 5 goals in 5 different game situations in a game. A gate with the same number of players on the ice, a shorthanded and a Überzahltor, as well as a changed Penalty and an Empty Net Goal ( on 31 December 1988 against the New Jersey Devils ).

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