REYKJAVIK, Iceland -- Welcome to our series on who wore each number best for the Penguins.
The idea is being openly borrowed from our new hockey writer, Cody Tucker, and his project at the Lansing State Journal covering all the uniform numbers worn through Michigan State football history, one that's been well received by their readers and prompted heavy discussion and debate.
Under the organization of Taylor Haase, and following the voting of a big chunk of our staff, we'll publish one new one each day until completion, which should be right around the start of training camp.
___________________
Name: Dick Tarnstrom
Number: 32
Position: Defense
Born: Jan. 20, 1975, in Sundbyberg, Sweden
Seasons with Penguins: 2002-06
Statistics with Penguins: 174 games, 28 goals, 75 assists in regular season
WHY TARNSTROM?
Longtime readers might recall I used to refer to him as 'The Great Dick Tarnstrom,' in a weekly reader feature at the Post-Gazette called Penguins Q&A. Every reference, too. No exceptions.
It was done playfully, of course, and Tarnstrom himself got a bit of a kick out of it. But context is everything, and within the mostly miserable context of the 2003-04 Penguins, who slogged through an 18-game losing streak, he actually was great: His 16 goals and 36 assists gave him 52 points, matching forward Ryan Malone's team-high total and making him officially the only defenseman to ever lead this franchise in scoring.
Here is every other defenseman in NHL history to achieve that: Bobby Orr, Raymond Bourque, Paul Coffey, Brad Park, Chris Chelios, Denis Potvin, Phil Housley, Brian Leetch, Sergei Zubov, Paul Reinhard, Larry Murphy, Kevin Hatcher, Lubomir Visnovsky, Mark Streit, Norm Maciver, Scott Stevens, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Erik Karlsson, Keith Yandle and, going all the way back to 1922, Sprague Cleghorn of the Canadiens, the only one before the great expansion of 1967.
There's some elite company in there, as well as a couple guys who made the most of being on bad teams. Tarnstrom was obviously more about the latter, but he also was a good hockey player:
And here he is roaming all over the power play with a rookie Sidney Crosby:
He was a smooth skater, sharp with the outlets, and he made up for any defensive deficiencies with a potent low shot he could either slap or wrist. And again, in that time, it really, really stood out.
WHAT'S HE DOING NOW?
Tarnstrom, now 43, would play 21 years of professional hockey, most of this with AIK in his native Sweden's top-level Elitserien, until he was forced to retire in 2013 by a herniated disc in his neck. Two months ago, he accepted another post with AIK, overseeing both of the club's junior operations, for under-18 and under-20.
"To be back in the organization and to work in hockey again is really fun," he told the Swedish outlet Svenskalag. "It's a role that I don't have experience with, so it's going to be a huge challenge."
Having gotten to know him from his time here -- we made a point of sitting in the same spot of the Civic Arena locker room bench after every skate and practice, just a silly, superstitious thing we both did -- I'd be stunned if he wasn't quietly, professionally going about becoming really good at it. If not great.
IT WAS SPOKEN
"It was a fantastic trip." -- Tarnstrom, upon his retirement in 2013
HONORABLE MENTIONS AT NO. 32
Dave Hannan
Peter Taglianetti
ANY DEBATE?
There was some. Hannan was a dogged two-way center for parts of eight seasons in Pittsburgh, 1981-88, producing 60 goals -- seven of those short-handed -- and 88 assists over 355 games at the NHL level. Taglianetti was a smart, sound defenseman on the first championship team in 1991 and spent five seasons in Pittsburgh, though injuries limited him to 167 games over his five seasons in Pittsburgh.
Tomorrow: Chris Bradford's got a tough one at No. 33.
Yesterday: Ken Wregget