Ron Francis – Pittsburgh Penguins
This guy killed two teams – although only one was on purpose.
His trade from Hartford to the Steel City in March 1991 is the official cause of death of the NHL in Connecticut’s capital. He didn’t request to be moved, but when he was, attendance at “The Mall” plummeted and so did the team before relocating to North Carolina in 1998. I’m a Rangers fan, but having grown up in Connecticut, I always had a soft spot for The Whale.
In 1992, Francis brutalized the Presidents’ Trophy-champion Rangers in Game 4 of the Patrick Division Finals. His hat trick – which included a goal on an unscreened shot from outside the blue line, and the winner in overtime – evened the series at two apiece. The Rangers never recovered, losing the next two, while the Pens won their second straight Cup.
Some pin the series loss on Richter for allowing that softy to Francis, but I’ll say this: The Rangers went 1-3 after Mario Lemieux was lost for the series in Game Two in which his hand was broken by an Adam Graves slash. If a team is so fragile that one bad goal against leads to complete collapse, then it wasn’t championship caliber in the first place.