It was an era rife with power forwards.
And he might have been the power forward.
Even if his prime was fleeting, Kevin Stevens was, quite possibly, the prototype for what most define as a power forward in hockey.
At 6-foot-3 and 231 pounds, Stevens was a giant of a man who moved with the speed of a jackrabbit for the Pittsburgh Penguins in the early 1990s.
And beyond his adroit skills that led to a handful of 50-goal campaigns, he was arguably the biggest voice in a team full of huge personalities. After the Penguins fell in the first two games of the 1991 Prince of Wales Conference Final to the Boston Bruins, Steven proclaimed to any reporter with a recorder or notepad, his team would win the series.
Four wins later, he was right. A few weeks later, the Penguins won the franchise’s first Stanley Cup championship thanks to Stevens’ brawn and bravado.
“He was very popular in our locker room,” former Penguins general manager Craig Patrick said. “Very popular. And people listened to him.”
On Tuesday, Stevens was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame during a ceremony at the Omni William Penn hotel downtown.
Stevens was part of the 2024 class of inductees that included former Penguins forward Matt Cullen as well as Olympic champion Brianna Decker and the 2002 Paralympic gold-medal winning sled hockey team (including forward Josh Wirt, a native of Homer City). Frederic McLaughlin, who founded the Chicago Blackhawks in 1926, was inducted posthumously.
Additionally, longtime broadcaster Sam Rosen received the Lester Patrick Trophy “for outstanding service to hockey.”
A native of Brockton, Mass., the 59-year-old Stevens didn’t think he would receive this honor given that his last NHL games came in 2002.
“It’s been a long time since I played,” Stevens said. “It’s been 24 years. I don’t know if I was clocked out of this thing or not. I snuck in late. It was great.
“To be in that class and to be here in Pittsburgh too, it makes it that much better.”
The annual ceremony rotates around the country to various hockey markets. This was the first time it was staged in Pittsburgh given the connections to Stevens and Cullen.
Plenty of Pittsburgh hockey luminaries were on hand for the ceremony, including Mario Lemieux and Sidney Crosby along with Patrick and fellow former Penguins general managers Jim Rutherford and Ray Shero.
Stevens still works for the Penguins as a special assignment scout in Boston with a focus on college players given the number of NCAA teams in New England.
“It’s a job, but I work for a team that I want to see win,” Stevens said. “That’s the best thing about my job. I want to see the Penguins, that’s the only team I want to see win. … I’m here because I want to see the team win. I want to try to help them win. When they win, it makes me happy.”
Stevens made plenty of people happy during his playing days. A three-time All-Star, he was a vital component of the franchise’s first two Stanley Cup titles in 1991 and 1992.
“He was such a great power forward,” Patrick said. “Complemented Mario really, really well. … He was a great skater, big powerful guy, great hands around the net.”
Cullen, a native of Virginia, Minn., also helped the Penguins win two Stanley Cup titles in 2016 and 2017.
He joined the Penguins late in his career, joining the Penguins late into the 2015 free agent signing period.
He considered retirement before signing with the team at age 39. But a phone call from Rutherford, his former general manager with the Carolina Hurricanes — “All three times I won the Stanley Cup was with (Cullen),” Rutherford noted — prompted him to keep playing.
“There probably weren’t a lot of teams lining up to grab me at that point,” Cullen said. “Kind of expected to be done. Then Jim called, and we were home contemplating what we’re going to do next, and it’s kind of, how do you say no to Jim? We had a great experience in Carolina winning, and so it was just a great opportunity.”
In a role with the bottom-six forwards, Cullen provided stability and guidance to a Penguins team that had turned to several youngsters such as forwards Bryan Rust, Tom Kuhnhackl and others.
“He knew the nuances of being an NHLer, the good, the bad, the ugly,” Rust said. “The ups and downs of the roller coaster of a season. If guys needed a talk, he gave them a talk. If guys needed a tap, he gave them a tap. You can see how long he played.
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“That’s a testament to how well he understood all those things.”
Today, Cullen shares his knowledge of the game in a player development coaching position.
“I do a lot through video, a lot of different kind of odd jobs, I guess, a little bit with different players and different groups. So it’s been fun. It allows me to stay in the game and kind of, hopefully, provide a little bit of insight where I can.”
One of only 21 players in NHL history to play more than 1,500 games, Cullen, still youthful-looking at 48, retired in 2019 playing three of his final four seasons with the Penguins.
“They were probably the most fun years I had playing, to be honest,” Cullen said. “It was fun. … I thought before I came here, I would be done playing. So we treated it like a gift a little bit, the time here.”
Being here — not just the ceremony but anywhere — is a gift for Stevens, too. And not one he takes for granted.
A battle with addiction involving various drugs cut his career short. That battle still goes on for Stevens, who estimates he seeks counseling three or four times a week.
Part of his battle is tied to helping others with addiction. Stevens and his sister, Kelli Wilson, run a program that aids those coming out of rehabilitation centers by providing housing.
Fittingly enough, the name of the program is Power Forward.
“Addiction is very, very strong,” Stevens said. “Powerful. It’s hard to explain how powerful it is. You wish you could just stop. … But addiction is more than that. You have to find a solution, you have to find a program that works. You have to stick with it every day.
“To stay clean and sober, you have to put it first in your life. You put that first in your life, life will be good. If you don’t, whatever you put in front of it is going to be taken away. I’ve learned that the hard way because it’s happened a few times.”