These are Jim Rutherford's Penguins, for better or worse
It’s hard to argue at this point that Jim Rutherford hasn’t been fairly successful running the Pittsburgh Penguins.
There was a lot of rather fair skepticism that this guy — whose Hurricanes missed the playoffs an NHL-record 412 years in a row because they never signed a single goalie who wasn’t named Cam Ward — would be the one to salvage the Pens roster while Sid Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang were still in their late 20s and early 30s.
But you gotta say he knocked it out of the park, at least initially: Bring in Phil Kessel for relatively little, put cheap young guys next to those top players instead of old expensive ones, get Justin Schultz to shore up the defensive depth, etc. “A handful of elite players, a hot goalie, and cheap depth” is always a good recipe for success in this league.
There have been some stumbles, of course. That Ryan Reaves-for-a-first trade worked out about as well as it had any right to (terribly), neither Riley Sheahan nor Derick Brassard are even coming close to working out, he was forced to trade Conor Sheary and Matt Hunwick (two legit NHLers) for a conditional-fourth to a conference rival, that inexplicable and immediately regrettable Jack Johnson contract. And not that it’s his fault, but Matt Murray seems to be broken after he rightly exposed Marc-Andre Fleury in the Vegas expansion draft.
This week, despite the Penguins struggling mightily to stop being mediocre this season, Rutherford signed an extension to stay on as GM through 2022, at which point he will be 73 years old. To celebrate the extension, Rutherford made a notable trade, swapping speedy, half-a-point-a-game Carl Hagelin — a guy he acquired in 2016 — for Tanner Pearson, a younger, slightly cheaper, signed-for-longer player in much the same mold, but who scores more often.
Which, hey, I’m not sure why LA makes that trade unless it’s fully committing to a blow-up, as it should. But for the Pens? It’s a shrewd buy-low move on a guy who’s gonna put up 40 points a year most of the time, but whose current on-ice shooting efficiency is 1.2 percent. Which is to say, if you put this guy with Evgeni Malkin, ah, I bet the goals come pretty steadily for him and he gets back on his usual 15-to-20 pace.
But the move was more interesting to me because it was Rutherford’s first real “sell a key guy I brought in” move since he took the job in 2014. It wasn’t a salary dump (Sheary) and it wasn’t admission of a mistake (Reaves); it was offloading a guy who was useful for a while but was also 30 years old and on an expiring deal, and getting a more effective, younger player who costs less.
The putative reason for the deal was to shake up the chemistry in the room, which apparently hasn’t been where it was the last three years. That’s fine I guess, but the fact is that Pearson is a better player than Hagelin and by that token this is an easy win for Rutherford in what has become a rather impressive list of them. And if you’re swapping out guys you acquired (I’d call Hagelin-for-Perron-and-Clendening something of a push) to improve, that’s a good sign.
There’s little that ties today’s Penguins to those of Rutherford’s predecessor. Only five Penguins from the 2013-14 team that got Ray Shero canned — Crosby, Malkin, Letang, Olli Maatta, and Brian Dumoulin — are still on the roster. That feels about right both because the roster needed a refresh and some guys were worth keeping around.
The problem, though, is that Rutherford was able to put a lot of complementary talent around Crosby and Malkin (and Letang to a lesser extent). But is there anyone he’s brought in you would consider a difference-maker? Kessel is probably the only name on that list, and while that’s a big add (he’s 91-149-240 in about 3.2 seasons), it doesn’t really do anything to address the club’s long-term goals.
Put another way, Tanner Pearson is a nice little add, but “little” seems to be the operative word here. He’s not moving the needle for the Pens much, so even if it’s a smart trade that targeted a desperate GM (those are, of course, the best kind) the praise should be a little muted. There doesn’t seem to be much of a long-term plan here. Maybe that’s because there doesn’t need to be.
And maybe Rutherford doesn’t have to care about five years down the line because he’s probably not gonna keep the job much longer than his new contract extension. At which point Crosby, Malkin, Kessel, and Letang will all be 34 or 35 and it’ll be time to rebuild in earnest. Time, that is, for Rutherford’s successor. There’s obviously no replacing two of the best players of all time.
More moves may be coming to make sure this team remains competitive for the duration of the next few years, but this feels like the beginning of the beginning of the end, doesn’t it? This could very well be the Crosby/Malkin Pens, one of the greatest of the era, formally setting off down the road to ride out over the horizon and into the sunset.
Do they have everything they need to win another Cup? They have Crosby and Malkin, and a goaltender who can get insanely hot for three months. That’s been enough before. Will it be again without more help? Tough to make the argument.
But Rutherford already did a great job getting this team back to the pinnacle of the sport. Pens fans better hope, for their own sake, he has another Kessel-type trade up his sleeve.
Ryan Lambert is a Yahoo! Sports hockey columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.
All stats via Corsica unless otherwise noted.
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