In 57 Days....

57 days from today, the Pittsburgh Penguins will begin their quest to win their 4th Stanley Cup against the Anaheim Ducks at 7:08 at the Consol Energy Center with a new look. In our effort to get you excited about hockey season, our countdown continues today. Since the Penguins were awarded an NHL franchise in 1967, only three players have ever worn the number 57. Those players were the great Chris Ferraro, the great Shawn Heins, and currently is worn by German wonder, Marcel Goc.

Since this countdown is to talk more about old shitty Penguins rather than good current ones as long as the numbers allow it, we're not gonna talk about Marcel Goc. We'll talk about him enough from October until hopefully June. So since we're doing an old shitty Penguin, we decided to do none other than....

Shawn Heins

Since we live in Pittsburgh, its only fitting to use a Heins for 57. Heins only played part of 1 season in Pittsburgh when GM Craig Patrick traded a 5th Round Pick to the Sharks for him in February of 2003. Heins played in 27 games scoring 1 goal and 1 assist and also recording 33 PIMs. Heins played in a total of 125 games in his NHL career and he scored a whopping 4 goals. What a player.

Heins played an average of 19:11 per game as a Penguin. That's ridiculous for a guy like him but it doesn't surprise anyone with the team that they had that year. 

Since Heins only played 27 games for the Penguins, there's only so much that we can write about him since, well do any of us really remember the Shawn Heins era in Pittsburgh?

That 2002-03 Pittsburgh Penguins team was coached by Rick Kehoe and they went 27-44-6-5 (65 points) and finished last in the Atlantic Division. Important to note, because the Penguins were so bad in 2003, with Shawn Heins and co., they earned the #1 overall pick in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft and drafted this guy.

All's well that ends well I guess.

With that, tune in tomorrow to see who #56 will be, we promise you'll enjoy this one.

Go Pens.