The Ken Dryden Scotty book had rather dull or non-existent comments by Bowman about most of the great players he's coached, but Mario was an exception in that Scotty's comments were actually interesting.
I'll paraphrase some here (also some comments about the Pens in general):
-- Scotty took the Penguins' job as "director of player personnel" in 1990, offered by Craig Patrick, with the understanding that Johnson was about to be named head coach and that Scotty would still be based in Buffalo. He'd drive 3.5 hours to Pittsburgh to their home games, and go to some Great Lakes' area games, but he'd only rarely go to the east coast and never to the west coast.
-- In 1991, with Johnson ill, Patrick asked Scotty to take over as head coach "on an interim basis". Scotty says he never thought he would coach the whole season.
-- Dryden writes that the Pens played like Scotty was the substitute teacher, and Scotty coached that way as well (because he thought Johnson was coming back soon). Scotty adds that the Pens "were never a big practice team". He says the Pens always wanted to play offence and didn't want to play defence.
-- Scotty says he had a good rapport with Bryan Trottier.
-- Scotty says Jagr, at 19, was "very moody" and always worried about his ice time.
-- Scotty has positive comments about Mario, saying that he was mild-mannered and never emotional, and just wanted to do whatever the coach wanted him to do. But Scotty adds that he had to "fit players in to play with him" and that Mario needed lots of ice time, which could be demanding for wingers.
-- Scotty said if Mario was in the line-up, they'd play one way, and if he wasn't they'd play another, which was "tough on the team", especially in the playoffs. Via Dryden's interpretation, Scotty appears to have said that he had learned, over the years, that as coach you adapt to your great players more than they adapt to you.
-- Scotty clearly remembers the first time he saw Mario play: Saturday morning at the Forum, during the 1977-78 season, when Lemieux was 12 (!).
-- Scotty praises Lemieux, in particular, for his play in game 7 of the Washington series in 1992 (after the Pens had been down 1-3 in the series). He says, "I'd never seen him play defensive hockey before -- play without the puck."
Unfortunately, Dryden/Bowman do not comment specifically about the Pens' 1993 loss to the Islanders in the book. Dryden just says that trouble began after that loss, regarding Scotty, because Scotty had expected the same deal Bob Johnson had gotten from Craig Patrick as head coach, but then Scotty discovered Johnson had gotten a signing bonus that Bowman didn't receive, and so Bowman "wasn't happy."