PITTSBURGH - The last time the Pittsburgh Penguins took the ice, they had the NHL's worst team. The league's lowest attendance. Even a modest end-of-season run didn't dim the memory of the longest losing streak in NHL history, one kept out of the record books by a solitary overtime loss.

It was almost hard to believe this was the same franchise that was a yearly Stanley Cup contender during 11 consecutive playoff seasons from 1991-2001.

A new NHL labor agreement, a radically altered rule book, a year off and Sidney Crosby have changed everything as the new season approaches. The Penguins aren't just one of the most radically changed teams from one season to the next in hockey history, but could be one of the most altered teams in any pro sport.

Consider this: In 2003-04, their major pickups were Mike Eastwood and Kelly Buchberger. Now, second-year coach Eddie Olczyk has All-Stars all around in John LeClair, Mark Recchi, Sergei Gonchar and Ziggy Palffy; a proven and reliable goalie in Jocelyn Thibault; and, yes, a 40-year-old center named Mario Lemieux, who looked years younger during a productive preseason.

This is the same team that lost 18 consecutive games in 2003-04, a flashback to the pre-Lemieux days of the early 1980s? Not even close.

Just as drafting Lemieux in 1984 proved to be a dynamic moment in club history, so might winning this summer's draft lottery and choosing Crosby, the most-awaited prospect since Lemieux himself. Even during this clutch-and-grab, dead-puck era of diminished scoring and neutral zone traps, Crosby put together consecutive Lemieux- and Wayne Gretzky-like seasons in junior hockey with 120 goals in two seasons.

That's 120 goals by himself, not by his team.

General Manager Craig Patrick calls winning the draft lottery, which the Penguins had only a 6.25 percent chance of doing, equivalent to hitting the Powerball lottery - it changed life in an instant. Suddenly, with a salary cap in place and a payroll now only a few million below those of the top-paying clubs like the Red Wings and Rangers, rather than $60 million as in 2003-04, the Penguins could be buyers on the most wide-open free agent market ever, not the sellers they were during the previous three years.

"Really, Sidney allowed us to go out and get Gonchar ($25 million over five years) right off the bat, and I think that was a key signing for us," Lemieux said, pointing to a Crosby-driven increase in ticket sales that gave the Penguins an unexpected pool of money to spend. "Once we did that, the players realized that we wanted to put a great team on the ice, and gave us an opportunity to go after Palffy and all the other guys we got."

It also delayed that youth movement of two years ago, one built around 2003 No. 1 draft pick Marc-Andre Fleury, who began that season as the starting goalie at age 18 but now will be Thibault's backup or a starter in the minors.

Lemieux has dared say the words "Stanley Cup contender," though that may be an overly optimistic projection for a team that won only 23 of 82 games when it last took the ice. The new players are that in name alone; the youngest of the group is Thibault at 30. Gonchar is 31, Palffy is 33, LeClair is 36, Recchi (signed a year ago) is 37. Lemieux, back on the ice after missing all but 10 games in 2003-04 with a hip-related injury, turns 40 on Wednesday, when the Penguins debut at New Jersey.

Lemieux himself might hold the key to whatever success the Penguins enjoy. Because of yet another long injury layoff and the lockout year, he has scored only one goal in 21/2 years. He missed most of two of the last three seasons with injuries, and even he has no idea how his body will hold up to a 20-minutes-a-night pace at 40.

But the new rules designed to increase scoring in a sport in which the goals-per-game average has dropped by 33 percent in a relatively brief period of time could be what Lemieux needs to have another productive year or two.

"I'm trying to keep up with these guys now," Lemieux said, pointing to the greatly improved talent around him. Among those players is 25-year-old Ryan Malone, whose rookie year numbers (22 goals, 21 assists) could jump appreciably while playing on Lemieux's line.

How well Crosby does in one of the mostly closely watched seasons by any rookie in any sport will greatly affect how the Penguins finish. Lemieux had 43 goals and 57 assists as a rookie in 1984-85, but that was during a different and more wide-open era, though he had far less talent around him than Crosby does.

"I feel lucky, because most guys drafted (No. 1) come into a team that's rebuilding, and that's not the case here," Crosby said.

No, that was 2001-02, 2002-03 and 2003-04. Now, the Penguins are about to find out if 2005-06 is a lot more like 1991 and 1992, their Stanley Cup years.

Will it be like old times or, if all the veteran players get hurt and don't produce like expected, a too-old team?

"We've been rebuilding for three years," Lemieux said, not counting the lockout year. "Now it's time to put a great team on the ice."