COLUMBUS, Ohio — Rob Scuderi’s cell phone began buzzing late Saturday night just seconds after Islanders’ defenseman Ryan Pulock made a game-saving stop to preserve a playoff victory against the Lightning.
The flurry of messages had nothing to do with the fact the former NHL defenseman grew up an Isles’ fan or that Scuderi was at Nassau Coliseum hours earlier tailgating in the parking lot with old friends.
Any Penguins’ fan with a memory of the franchise’s 2009 Stanley Cup run knows why Scuderi’s text messages were stacking up following the Islanders’ 3-2 win to knot the semifinal series at 2-2. Few can relate to Pulock’s sense of good timing and composure better than the 42-year-old former Penguin.
“I was watching the game with my sons,” Scuderi told DK Pittsburgh Sports on Sunday. “I guess it’s hard not to think about it given the situation.”
Twelve years ago, Scuderi made one of the great defensive plays in Penguins’ playoff history in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final, a 2-1 win over the Red Wings at Mellon Arena. With the goalie pulled for an extra attacker, the Wings were swarming around the Pittsburgh net in the final 20 seconds when Pavel Datsyuk slipped the puck to Johan Franzen, who was positioned at the top of the crease.
Because Datsyuk was a threat to score just several feet from the post, Marc-Andre Fleury had to gird himself for a potential shot. Once the crafty Wings’ center made his deft pass, Scuderi was the only Penguin in the crease — one-on-one with an opponent known as “The Mule.”
“You always try to put yourself in a position to help the group,” Scurderi recalled. “Maybe something happens, maybe it doesn’t, but you’re in the right position to help out if something comes about. That’s why you practice, it’s why you constantly do these things over and over so they become instinct.”
Datsyuk’s pass caromed off Frazen’s skate and would have found the back of the net had Scuderi not had his stick on the ice and in position.
The mayhem was just starting, however. Scuderi and Franzen frantically fenced for the puck as a sellout crowd stood frozen in suspense. As Franzen collected the rebound, the Penguins’ defender dropped to his knees and instinctively stuck out his left leg in desperation.
If Frazen had been able to elevate the puck, the game likely would have been tied with the Wings owning a chance to clinch the series in overtime. Instead, Scuderi made a left-skate save and avoided the natural impulse to cover the puck with his glove, which could have produced a penalty shot if detected by the referee.
Fleury scrambled back in time to glove the puck just as Frazen and about six others piled into the crease.
“I remember we were both kind of hacking away at it — (Franzen) is trying to put it in and I’m trying to keep it out,” Scuderi said. “I’m just hoping to God that I can get it out of the danger area . . . The only thing I can remember clearly thinking is, ‘Don’t put your hand on (the puck).’”
Pulock’s heroics were made more dazzling because of the shot itself. Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh accepted a pass from behind the net and shook defender Brock Nelson with a stunning spin-o-rama in the left circle. The move pulled goalie Seymon Varlamov hopelessly out of position and the falling McDonagh sent a backhander toward the open net in the final three seconds.
An alert Pulock read the play and slid across the crease, using his right arm to push the puck to safety.
“Hats off to him for being in the right place at the right time and helping his team,” Scuderi said. “Some time the best thing to do is make a fist and punch the puck around so the refs can always see it, and you’re not going to get in trouble. In those desperate times, it’s an important instinct that you have . . . Pulock kept his hand there, but he never covered (the puck) because he knows it’s going to be a penalty.”
Scuderi and Hal Gill formed the Penguins’ shutdown pairing in the 2009 playoffs and were often on the ice in late-game situations.
Teammates nicknamed him “The Piece” after Scuderi inadvertently referred to himself as such when media members were quizzing him about finding the right pieces to the puzzle to make a deep Cup run. He meant to say he was just “a piece,” and teammates obviously knew it, but couldn’t resist poking fun.
Scuderi, who left via free agency that summer for Los Angeles, where he won another Cup in 2012, said the nickname followed him to the West Coast.
“You try to keep that stuff down, but it never stays away,” said Scuderi, who rejoined the Penguins for parts of three seasons starting in 2013. “It was funny. It was a mistake in a turn of phrase that sticks with you. I don’t think anyone thought it was a genuine comment. That’s why it was all in good fun and I never minded it.”
In the unimaginative world of hockey nicknames — one filled with “Tangers” and “Rustys” and “Carts” — The Piece had a certain cache.
“It was nice to have something different,” said Scuderi, who had previously been dubbed . . . wait for it . . . “Scuds.”
Scuderi’s goal-robbing play sometimes gets overlooked in the history of the 2009 Cup because the Penguins still needed to win a Game 7. He once again was on the ice in the dying seconds at Joe Louis Arena as Fleury made the lunging stop to deny Nicklas Lidstrom at the buzzer.
“It will come up,” Scuderi said of his most famous playoff moment. “The people in the Pittsburgh area remember it more because it was your team and you are a little more connected to those moments. Fans will say, ‘Hey, that was a great play, we’ll always remember that one’ and also, ‘congratulations because it was so much fun to be a part of that run and have that team win.’”
Nowadays, Scuderi is helping other young defenseman ready themselves for nervy, end-of-game chaos. He works as a development coach for the Predators’ organization.
“You are more focused on good body position and good stick position, and those things sound boring, but you see what happens when the moment arises and what can happen and the affect it can have on a game,” said Scuderi, who lives a mile from the Coliseum on Long Island. “You can prepare, but you can’t simulate the actual thing that’s happening. In that moment, a guy has to rely on his training and his instincts and the fact he can make a play for his team.”
Winning goalies are usually the ones mobbed after the final horn blows in the third period, but Saturday night the Islanders’ players surrounded Pulock.
In 2009, the Penguins had to withstand a few more seconds of drama after the famous stoppage, but Scuderi was swarmed by teammates on the bench. If the Red Wings had scored, who knows how history is remembered.
“When the play arises and your name gets called, you’re there to help your team,” Scuderi said. “And for me, it helped us win a game. Same thing happened last night for Ryan Pulock. It was a heckuva a play and it brought back a few memories for sure.”