Former Penguins coach, player Lou Angotti dies
From a certain perspective, Lou Angotti might have been the Penguins’ most successful coach in franchise history.
Because he essentially helped save the franchise by doing exactly what was expected.
He lost.
A lot.
As steward of the infamous 1983-84 team, Angotti directed the Penguins to a franchise-worse 16-58-6 record.
That dreadful mark earned Angotti a pink slip and the Penguins a chance to draft the iconic Mario Lemieux.
Angotti recently died at the age of 83. The Philadelphia Flyers, whom Angotti played for, announced his death on Thursday but did not provide specifics, including the date of death.
A native of Toronto, Angotti had a 10-year career as an NHL player. But his most lasting impact might have been made from behind the Penguins’ bench.
Installed as coach on July 20, 1983, Angotti was thrust into a quiet but obvious plan by Penguins management — i.e. general manager Eddie Johnston — to put the franchise into a position to draft Lemieux, projected at the time as one of the greatest prospects in NHL history.
While Johnston largely did most of the work towards that goal by compiling a roster of players with minimal NHL-caliber talent, Angotti was charged with deploying those players in curious fashions.
“We were coaching not to win,” Angotti admitted to Canadian broadcaster TSN during a 2014 documentary. “I won’t ever deny that. I put my fourth-line players out against the other team’s first-line players. Whenever we got a penalty, I put players on the ice that normally you wouldn’t put them out there to kill the penalties.”
Such tactics were resoundedly successful as the Penguins were outscored by an astounding 136 goals over the course of the season.
“Eddie Johnston and I did what we thought we had to do to save the franchise,” Angotti said to TSN. “But the thing that bothered Eddie and I a great deal about what we did is the fact that what if it didn’t come about. We’re going into games that we’re not looking to win. That’s the worst part. That’s the thing that scared me the most.”
Angotti was fired on June 4, 1984, and moved to a scouting role with the Penguins. A mere five days later, the Penguins drafted Lemieux, who went on to impact the franchise in more ways than any other athlete in professional sports over the course of the next three-plus decades.
In addititon to the Penguins, Angotti coached the St. Louis Blues for parts of two seasons during the mid-1970s.
As a player, Angotti suited up for the Penguins for one season as a right winger during the franchise’s second season of 1968-69. In 71 games, he scored 37 points (17 goals, 20 assists). He was one of four people to play for the Penguins and serve as the franchise’s head coach, including Rick Kehoe, Eddie Olczyk and Ken Schinkel.
The first captain of the Flyers in 1967-68, Angotti also played for the Blues, New York Rangers and Chicago Black Hawks.
Funeral arrangements were not announced.
Seth Rorabaugh is a TribLive reporter covering the Pittsburgh Penguins. A North Huntingdon native, he joined the Trib in 2019 and has covered the Penguins since 2007. He can be reached at srorabaugh@triblive.com.
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