The Penguins have had a bounty of generational talents since Mario Lemieux arrived here in 1984.
Most franchises could only imagine what it would be like to just once have a Lemieux. Or a Jaromir Jagr. Or a Sidney Crosby. Or an Evgeni Malkin.
The Penguins, conversely, seem to average about one per decade.
But it takes more than just a world-class talent or two for a team to succeed in the NHL; remember that Lemieux -- a consensus choice for one of the greatest players in hockey history -- didn't get into the Stanley Cup playoffs until his fifth season in the league.
So while the game-changers and difference-makers like Lemieux and Jagr, Crosby and Malkin tend to command the most attention, which is completely reasonable and justified, every successful club seems to have a player or two whose contributions are far greater than their profiles. Guys whose value is recognized inside the locker room, but might not be fully appreciated by those on the outside.
In the case of the Cup-winning teams captained by Lemieux, perhaps that would have been blue-collar center Randy Gilhen, or defenseman Gordie Roberts.
For the 2009 champions, how about Ruslan Fedotenko? Maybe Ian Cole for the 2016 titlists and Ron Hainsey a year later.
But it's not just teams that end their seasons with a civic celebration that have players who qualify as underrated or under-appreciated, and even deciding how those terms should be applied is quite subjective.
For example, does Rob Brown qualify because, while scoring 49 goals in 68 games in 1988-89, many observers dismissed his productivity as strictly a by-product of having Lemieux for a linemate, ignoring the reality that Brown's offensive abilities had allowed him to set single-season Western Hockey League records for points (212) and assists (136) that still stand?
No one on the 2020-21 Penguins was an obvious choice, although a case might be made that Zach Aston-Reese, who has some ferocious critics, was a bigger piece of their personnel puzzle than was widely recognized.
YOUR TURN: Who do you regard as the most underrated/under-appreciated player in Penguins history?