7. Pittsburgh Penguins (NHL ’94)
Though none of the teams in NHL ’94 leap off the page as overly dominant, a more thorough (hip) check reveals that Pittsburgh are solid in all areas, and happen to feature the best weapon in the game. Penguins superstar Mario Lemieux is the only player rated 100 overall, and the other forwards are no slouches either, including Jaromir Jagr (80), Kevin Stevens (77) and Ron Francis (75). These figures may not sound spectacular, but NHL ’94 was particularly stingy in that regard. For perspective, Trevor Linden held a 78 rating, and that’s just sacrilege.
The Pens’ defense isn’t quite as stacked, but in theory, the team would be able to put enough pucks into the net to prevent that from ever being an issue. If worse came to worse, Tom Barrasso still proved an effective goaltender, just to make things even more unfair. Especially if you were an Anaheim fan, a team so terrible in NHL ’94 that their best chance for success was perhaps not showing up at all.
