Joe Mullen

Did You Know?

• Mullen was named the CHL rookie of the year in 1980 and most valuable player in 1981 as a member of the Salt Lake Golden Eagles.
• He won the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy twice as a member of the Flames, as well as the NHL Plus-Minus Award.
• His son Patrick signed a contract with the Ottawa Senators organization for the 2013–14 season.

Early life

Joe Mullen came into the world on February 26, 1957, in New York City, and was raised in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen during the era when Mickey Spillane ran the neighborhood. It was a tough place to grow up; Mullen later recalled that many of the kids he knew ended up in gangs or addicted to drugs, and some didn't make it past age 20. He grew up with three brothers—Ken, Tom Jr., and Brian—and a sister named Debbie. The Mullen home sat less than a block from where the third Madison Square Garden once stood on Eighth Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets.

His father, Tom, worked for years on the ice and maintenance crews at the current Garden, and Joe and his brothers would tag along, grabbing discarded sticks to play with. At age five, Mullen started playing roller hockey in a concrete schoolyard, using a sanded-down roll of electrical tape as a puck. Those schoolyard games helped spark New York Rangers general manager Emile Francis to found the Metropolitan Junior Hockey Association in 1966. Mullen didn't step onto ice skates until he was ten, but by 14 he had joined the Metropolitan league as one of its youngest players.

He spent four seasons there from 1971 to 1975, netting 71 goals in 1973–74 and racking up 182 points in 40 games the next year. His 110 goals in 1974–75 beat the second-place scorer by 52.

Playing career

Boston College offered Mullen a partial scholarship for the 1975–76 season. He paid $700 out of his own pocket the first year, but after scoring 34 points in 24 games as a freshman, the school gave him a full scholarship. Including tournament games, he led the Eagles in goals the following three seasons with 39, 38 and 30 respectively, and in points in 1977–78 with 68 and in 1978–79 with 56. Mullen led the Eagles to the ECAC championship in 1977–78 and was named an all-star of the 1978 NCAA tournament.

He scored a goal in the championship game, but Boston University won 5–3. In four seasons, Mullen set school records of 110 goals and 212 points, both subsequently broken. He was named to the All-ECAC, All-New England and NCAA All-American teams in 1978 and 1979, won the Walter Brown Award in 1978, and was team captain in 1978–79. Boston College inducted him into its Varsity Club Hall of Fame in 1998 and retired his jersey number 21 the following year.

Mullen went undrafted by any NHL team, due to his small stature and a general bias against American players. He passed up the 1980 Winter Olympics and signed with the St. Louis Blues on August 16, 1979. The Blues assigned him to the CHL's Salt Lake Golden Eagles for 1979–80, where he scored 40 goals and 72 points in 75 games, was named to the CHL's second all-star team, and was voted rookie of the year. He made his NHL debut in the 1980 Stanley Cup Playoffs, appearing in one game for the Blues.

Playing style

Mullen possessed great balance on his skates, which his teammates and coaches believed came from playing roller hockey. Despite standing only five foot nine inches tall, his coaches praised his willingness to play in difficult areas of the ice and to take a hit to make a play. Penguins' play-by-play announcer Mike Lange nicknamed him 'Slippery Rock Joe' for his ability to evade opposing players. Mullen's career totals of 502 goals and 1,063 points stood as American records until surpassed by Mike Modano and Phil Housley, respectively.

Along with his brother Brian, he received the Lester Patrick Award in 1995 for contributions to hockey in the United States. He was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in 1998, the Pittsburgh Penguins Hall of Fame, and the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2000. In 2011, the St. Louis Blues honored four players who wore uniform number 7, including Mullen, Red Berenson, Garry Unger and Keith Tkachuk.

Coaching career

Joe Mullen began his coaching career in 2000 as an assistant with the Pittsburgh Penguins under Ivan Hlinka. When Hlinka was dismissed a year later, Mullen stayed on the staff for the tenures of Rick Kehoe and later Ed Olczyk. He was let go from his assistant role in the middle of the 2005–06 season after the Penguins fired Olczyk and his entire coaching staff. Pittsburgh kept Mullen in the organization, however, and he became the interim head coach of their AHL affiliate, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, for the rest of that season.

Over 52 games, his record was 28 wins, 16 losses, 3 ties, and 5 overtime losses. The Penguins did not keep him on after the season. Mullen then joined the Philadelphia Flyers organization, first as an assistant coach for the AHL's Philadelphia Phantoms in 2006–07, and then moving up to the NHL Flyers in 2007. He ran the team's power play and was part of the coaching staff that reached the 2010 Stanley Cup Final. He stayed with the Flyers through the end of the 2016–17 season.