Jim Rutherford gave his end of the year State of the Union address to the media. He spoke on a wide range of topics. I am going to go through some of the more interesting bits of information and provide some personal opinion to what was said.

All quotes are courtesy of the Penguins official website

“I like what our players did in the playoffs,” he said. “I know it was only five games. But we competed hard and gave the Rangers everything they could handle. We can talk about injuries, I’m not trying to make excuses, we can talk about breaks in games, you make your own breaks. But we could have easily got some breaks and those games against the Rangers could have easily gone the other way.”

I totally agree. I think Pittsburgh did the best they could with the roster they had.

“Those were huge losses for our team that we couldn’t overcome down the stretch,” he said. “(Letang and Ehrhoff) were puck-movers. We missed that on the backend. It affected our goals for because our transition game was affected and that affects the forwards when they’re not getting the puck when they should.”

“’Geno’ is the type of guy that won’t use excuses, but he sprained his ankle,” Rutherford said. “He came back sooner than most players would and continued to play on an ankle that was not 100 percent. Hornqvist had a broken rib. He came back and played with it.”

Losing Letang and Ehrhoff at the end of the year was the deathblow. Couple that with missing Olli Maatta and Derrick Pouliot and all the skilled puck movers on the team other than Paul Martin were out. No team in the NHL could overcome something like this. And if memory serves correct only the Buffalo Sabres of 2006 have ever had to deal with such devastating losses to their blue line.

Evgeni Malkin and Patric Hornqvist both put their team above themselves and made a go of it. Geno didn’t register any points but I suppose playing on a sprained ankle in a league that allows star players to be suffocated isn’t an ideal situation. Patric Hornqvist is just a beast to look like he did with a broken rib.

“(Johnston) made adjustments when necessary. He dealt with tough situations at times,” Rutherford said. “I think Mike did a really good job. He had really good communication with the players. Based on my meeting with the players yesterday, I had that confirmed.”

“Part of it can be attributed to Mike (Johnston) because I don’t believe we gave up as many quality scoring chances this year,” Rutherford said. “We tightened that up. Even Fleury talked about it in my meeting (with him). He liked how we tightened things up. We reduced our goals against. Our penalty killing was good.”

I think Mike Johnston did a really nice job with the team this year. I think a lot of the criticism he has received is extremely overblown. The Penguins are a better shot suppression team under Mike Johnston and offensively the team relied on skilled defenders to generate the attack. When the defenders went down to injury the attack stalled out.

However, as far as the quality scoring chances line Rutherford threw out there, it just isn’t true:

Scoring Chances Against per 60:

2014-15 PIT: 24.3
2012-14 PIT 2 yr average: 24.4
https://t.co/u025eSy0pN

— Lyle Kossis (@LyleKossis) April 28, 2015

The variable that changed was that Marc-Andre Fleury played better. His high danger save percentage improved.

“I believe that those (deadline) deals helped us on the short-term,” Rutherford said. “It didn’t turn out exactly how we planned because both of those guys were supposed to fit into certain slots, playing a certain number of minutes, but that would have been if Ehrhoff and Letang were playing. Then we had to lean on them to play a lot more minutes.”

Rutherford did admit that the team debated the trades internally, and that acquiring Lovejoy for Despres was a move that was very difficult.

“The one move that I question and that we questioned at the time was trading a young defenseman for a veteran defensemen,” he said. “The reason we did that was we wanted a right-shot defenseman and veteran at the time to take a long run. The other part of it, we have a lot of young defensemen. We can only put so many in the lineup.”

I agree that you can’t forecast and expect to lose two defenders like Letang and Ehrhoff but the Simon Despres trade as just as much garbage today as it was the day it was made.

I despise the reasoning for targeting Lovejoy. Who cares how old the players are? Evaluate based on performance. You don’t need a certain quota of veteran players in the lineup you just need to play the best you have. Trading for a player because of what hand they are is also asinine. Last time I checked Despres was left handed playing the right side with Rob Scuderi and doing so just fine. Using age and what hand somebody plays as the driving force for a roster move is so incredibly dated.

Some people will say that admitting mistake publicly is noble and brave, but this is an end results business. Publically giving an “aw shucks” doesn’t change the fact the team was voluntarily made worse with that move.

“We got better at this when Mike clamped down on the discipline,” he said. “This team wasn’t a real disciplined team at times, whether it was taking penalties at the wrong time or too many penalties in a game or talking back to the officials. When Mike really clamped down on it with about a month left in the season, our players responded to it. They were much more disciplined. That’s something we have to be much better at next year.”

This was a definite problem in 2014-15. The Penguins took 349 minor penalties which was second most in the NHL. Only Winnipeg had more at 374. The Penguins made a talking point in the offseason to get “grittier” and with that came more penalties. Furthermore, Rick Tocchet was brought in to run the power play and to bring an element of discipline to the roster. That didn’t really work out.

“I don’t believe that our power play shoots the puck enough,” Rutherford said. “Too often we try to make the perfect play. Early in the year when we were clicking along at a much higher pace than we knew we were going to, we shot the puck a lot. We worked off of rebounds and breaking up the box.”

Rutherford pointed to the team’s immense talent, which can be a blessing and a curse.

“They’re so talented that they’re trying to make those perfect goals and perfect plays,” said Rutherford, who put responsibility on both the players and coaches. “The players are aware of what changes need to be made on the power play. As the season went along, I agree, our power play was disappointing and underperformed. It can be fixed because we have the players that are capable of doing it.”

Shot volume shot volume shot volume. The best power plays in the league have it. I think the players have to own a lot of this. I do believe that the shot volume part of the equation was not lost on the coaching staff.

The problem the power play ran into at times this season was that they had a power play quarterback that was unwilling to shoot. Opposing teams identified this and adjusted accordingly. The result was a lack of shooting lanes and a perimeter power play because the penalty killing groups did not allow east/west passing lanes.

Here are some basic power play X’s and O’s I drew up back in March. It is nothing fancy but it is effective at creating 2 on 1 situations.

“We’d like to get more speed in our lineup,” he said. “We would like to get some of these younger players started. Some of that young energy will help.”

And as always, the Pens are searching for talented wingers to help superstar centers Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. Though acquiring those players will likely come via a trade.

“It’s not a great free agency crop,” Rutherford said. “Hornqvist is one. He’s a guy that can help those players. To try and get a little more skill, maybe one or two more wingers that are more complimentary, is something that’s been a goal of this franchise for a while, and continues to be. We’ll see what’s out there trade-wise.”

Rutherford said upgrades more likely to come in trades than free agency; wouldn't rule out buyouts of current players' contracts. #Penguins

— Shelly Anderson (@_ShellyAnderson) April 28, 2015

The UFA crop for high end wingers leaves a lot to be desired. Michael Frolik is going to be a 5M endeavor and it appears he is the most appealing option. Justin Williams will be out there but he will be 34 when the 2015-16 season opens up and the Penguins will more than likely look to get younger, not older.

That leaves the trade route. What do they have to offer?

A source has told me that the Penguins would be willing to move Brandon Sutter in an effort to acquire another winger for the team. Anybody who has read this blog knows that is music to my ears. I don't think Brandon Sutter's 3.3M is good value for the Penguins. Pittsburgh is a team that needs to get better value from their depth players and Brandon Sutter is the poster child for this shortcoming.

Depending on which front office you are dealing with the Brandon Sutter’s perceived value is going to be much higher than his actual value. The 21 goals is going to stick out a lot more than the horrible possession metrics to some evaluators. The Penguins could get lucky here.

As far as buyouts are concerned I think that Rob Scuderi will be bought out unless they are able to find a trade, something that is unlikely. The Penguins cannot move forward with him taking a roster spot.

Chris Kunitz is not a buyout candidate. Somebody would have interest in trading for him if that is the route the Penguins want to go in. The return might not be great but a buyout is far from necessary.

“We made a mistake on Beau Bennett as far as development-wise,” he said. “I’ll take the responsibility for that. When it was getting closer for him to become a waivered player, I felt we should have sent him to Wilkes-Barre and let him play a lot. He’s a guy that hasn’t played enough over the years. So we kept him around that time. He’s not consistent enough, he’s not strong enough, but he’s a very talented player.”

Rutherford still believes that Bennett will “be a good NHL player.” He added, “I hope it starts next year and not the year after, but at some point in time he’s going to get it.”

Injuries and injuries alone deserve the blame for Beau Bennett’s development. There is nothing for him to gain at the AHL level. He is an NHL talent that was playing on two broken wheels this past year. When you combine the injuries with low caliber linemates the results were predictable.

A healthy offseason will do wonders for Bennett and he will be a contributing member of the 2015-16 Penguins on a relatively cheap contract which will be very beneficial to Pittsburgh’s cap situation.

No need to overthink things here. A healthy Beau will produce. Will he be healthy? We’ll see.

*Rutherford pointed out how much captain Sidney Crosby grew as a two-way forward for the Pens over the course of the season.

“I’m so proud of what he did in becoming that all-around player, coming back in his own end deep, helping out, and getting his points,” Rutherford said. “If he hadn’t had the mumps and gone through that three-week period he still would have won the scoring race. And played an all-around game. That’s the kind of game and leadership you need to ultimately win a championship. That was a big step forward.”

I personally don’t think this is something new at all. Sidney Crosby has been an excellent all-around player his entire career. In fact just last season I thought there was plenty of evidence that pointed to Crosby as a deserving Selke Trophy nominee.

Rutherford won't overload on one-way contracts that could block Kapanen, Sundqvist from making big team. But they'll still have to earn it.

— Dejan Kovacevic (@Dejan_Kovacevic) April 28, 2015

This is the appropriate plan of action. I expect Sundqvist to make the team next year and open up as the fourth line center. Kasperi Kapanen is somebody I have more reservations about. He might be an AHL player for the 2015-16 season, but the only way to find out for sure is to give him a chance and it looks like that chance will be granted.

Last but not least:

Happy Wednesday! pic.twitter.com/Hxt4IAq6kT

— Meesh (@HockeyMeesh) April 29, 2015

Hallelujah!


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