Pittsburgh Penguins GM Jim Rutherford is a patient man. However, it appears that his patience has reached its end.
The two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Penguins are by no means dead and buried. However, Mike Sullivan’s squad finds itself owners of a ho-hum 16-13-3 record after 32 games played. The Pens are 5-5 in their past 10 games, including a lackluster 2-3 record during a recent 5 game home stand. Sullivan ‘s team is regressing having lost three of four contests following a four-game winning streak.
Prior to Wednesday night’ game action, the Pens were in ninth place in the Eastern Conference standings. The Columbus Blue Jackets and Washington Capitals occupied the top spot in the Metro with 39 points each. The vastly improved New Jersey Devils had 38 points, NY Islanders 37 points. With 35 points, champs and NY Rangers were tied for fifth place in the ultra-competitive Metro Division. The Philadelphia Flyers and Carolina Hurricanes were tied for last place with 31 points apiece.
Rutherford is at a crossroads: a three-game losing streak could drop his team to the Metro cellar. However, a three-game winning streak may not give them traction to climb the standings because there are so many teams playing winning hockey and blocking their path to the top of the standings.
Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette caught up with Rutherford, who accompanied the Penguins on their trip to Las Vegas.
“We’re coming in to a critical period where we’ll make a decision whether we need to shake things up or not,” Rutherford said.
The three-time Stanley Cup winning team architect didn’t sugar-coat his emotions when asked if he is open to making a “big trade” in order to correct the course of his listing club.
“Yes”, Rutherford said.
The Penguins GM and his AGM’s Bill Guerin and Jason Karmanos know what they have in terms of players and prospects in their pipeline. The Pens have currency in the form of high-yield roster players and properly developed prospects that were groomed for the NHL while playing in the wildly successful incubator in Wilkes Barre Scranton.
“We are at a point where we’re slipping in the wrong direction”, Rutherford said.
Like most NHL general managers, Rutherford would prefer that his collective group of players find a solution to their struggles. Sullivan is blessed to have future first-ballot Hall of Famers Sidney Crosby, Geno Malkin and Kris Letang in the room mentoring the group. However, Rutherford isn’t going to be waiting much longer before he makes his bold move.
On Wednesday in Vegas, Rutherford fired a shot across the bow by delivering a pointed message to Crosby, Malkin, Phil Kessel, Letang and the other 19 players on the Pittsburgh roster. He didn’t name the names of those players protected from wrath. He didn’t have to.
The Pens players have been forewarned: figure it out on this trip or else their general manager will be forced to manipulate this roster.
“I’m not going to get into lists,” Rutherford said. “I’m not saying we have to shake it up.
“We’re good enough to be better than we’re doing. Hopefully that’s the way it goes here in the next little while. If it doesn’t, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that a major trade would come out of this.”
“We have to understand that every team we play is playing us like it’s a playoff game,” Rutherford said. “They want to beat the Stanley Cup champions. We can’t play two periods and think we’re going to win games.
“We’re going to play three games here on the road where we’re going to have teams that will outwork us. We have to be prepared for it. The homestand needed to be better. The good news is we’re not far out of the top of the division. The bad news is we’re right around not being in the playoffs.
“I believe we have a team that could’ve done better at this point, but I understand the big factor, in that we’re a team that hasn’t had much of a break in the last two off-seasons. I’ve always felt it would take us to the halfway point to really get going. We’re almost there. But we are at a point where we’re slipping in the wrong direction. We have to watch that real close.”
Another thing Rutherford, Guerin and Karmanos have been doing is closely scouting teams in the Eastern and Western conferences. Not surprisingly, the Penguins brass have dispatched their scouts to select outposts in search of a top six scoring forward. Rutherford is interested in a versatile, veteran power forward who can score at even strength and on the power play. The Penguins have been frequent flyers to Buffalo this season. Karmanos and his scouts have made in-person visit good friend Jason Botterill, the former AGM of the Penguins and GM of WSB Baby Penguins.
The modus operandi in the NHL is for general managers of winning teams to keep driving by when they see the metaphorical car of one of their counterparts bogged down in a snow, muddy ditch at the side of the road. Let him suffer, they say. Your loss is their gain. NHL GM’s want to take advantage of their peers who are trying to find solutions for their struggling teams.
Cue David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance”.
Why wouldn’t Botterill be willing dance partner for Rutherford to make a mutually beneficial big trade with?
If the Penguins come up snake eyes on this three-game western roadie, Rutherford may turn to Botterill to help bolster the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Penguins. Botterill knows Rutherford’s needs. For ten years, Botterill was a member of the staffs of Rutherford and his predecessor Ray Shero. Botterill built the AHL incubator program that continues to matriculate organizational prospects to Sullivan’s roster in Pittsburgh.
Suffice to say, Botterill feels Rutherford’s pain. Phil Housley’s team continues to be a work in progress. The Sabres are playing their best stretch of hockey of the season. With a 2-0-2 record in their last four games, the Sabres are looking to extend the team’s point streak to five games for the first time since Buffalo recorded points in nine straight games from March 10 to 27, 2012. The Sabres play in Philadelphia on Thursday night. The team is getting its confidence now that injured defensemen Rasmus Ristolainen and Zach Bogosian have stabilized a once-shaky D corps. Rutherford can also empathize with his former assistant who finds himself in 30th place in the NHL standings just 31 games into his first season as an NHL GM.
Housley’s best player since opening night has been Evander Kane, the 26-year old power forward who has scored 42 goals (34 at even strength) and 29 assists in his past 101 games played since December 3, 2016. Thus far in his contract season, Kane has scored 14 goals and 14 assists in 31 games. At this rate, Kane will no doubt set career highs for goals (30), assists (27) and points (57).
How can Kane help make the Penguins a better team? Kane is a 5v5 terror, a superb penalty killer and a tremendous power play performer. Want more? He hits, blocks shots, fights, chirps, agitates and makes life miserable for his opponents.
The Penguins need a player like Kane right now. Their even strength goal scoring leaves a helluva lot to be desired.
Pens are the 10thranked team in total goal scoring with 94 goals for this season. True.
The Pens are ranked 29th overall with only 45 goals at 5v5. The only teams with fewer even strength goals are San Jose (43) and Buffalo (42).
By contrast, Crosby and company scored 278 total goals last season, of which 185 goals were at 5v5. The Penguins were the NHL’s 2nd ranked team in terms of 5v5 scoring in the 2016-17 regular season The Minnesota wild were first overall with 187 5v5 goals for.
Rutherford, Guerin, Karmanos and Sullivan know this. Now you know why Rutherford is at his tipping point. If his players don’t respond, he will pull the trigger and bring in a proven top six scoring forward.
Today’s Penguins offense is so reliant on it’s power play. The Pens have already scored 30 PPGs this season. Malkin, Crosby, Kessel, Letang and the Pens PP scored 56 total goals in 2016-17.
Kane is a pending unrestricted free agent and he will not come cheap to the Penguins. A smart GM like Rutherford would see trading for Kane as an investment and not a cost. Having run Rutherford’s salary cap in Pittsburgh, Botterill can make a Kane trade a simple financial transaction by offering to absorb up to fifty percent of Kane’s $6 million salary. Kane is a $5.25 million annual average value this season.
Here’s how I see a Sabres-Penguins trade for Kane:
Kane is a left winger. Therefore, Botterill will be looking to take away a top six left winger from Rutherford.
I sincerely can’t see Sidney Crosby signing off on a trade of his left winger Jake Guentzel. Rutherford wouldn’t want to tempt fate by dealing away Crosby’s collaborator. However, I can see a scenario where the Penguins include two-time Stanley Cup winning left winger Conor Sheary in a deal for Evander Kane. Sheary, 25, was one of Botterill’s star pupils at Wilkes Barre Scranton. In his rookie season of 2015-16, Sheary played 44 games and scored 7 goals and 3 assists. Then, in 23 Stanley Cup playoff games, Sheary scored 4 goals and 6 assists. In his sophomore season in 2016-17, Sheary erupted for 23 goals and 30 assists in 61 games played. Last spring, Sheary scored 2 goals and 5 assists in 22 Stanley Cup playoff games.
Sheary is in the first year of a three-year, $9 million contract.
Sheary, a former UMass star and Winchester, Massachusetts native, would seemingly vibe immediately with Jack Eichel. Sheary was undrafted. Botterill took a leap of faith on the kid. Two Stanley Cup rings later, the legend of Conor Sheary continues to be told. Sheary is just now entering his prime years of his career.
Botterill would not be adding Kane for Sheary straight up.
Rutherford would have to include a 2018 first round pick and defenseman Ian Cole, whom Rutherford has been trying to trade. Cole, 28, is a left shot defenseman who will become UFA on July 1, 2018. Cole carries a $2.5 million salary this season and $2.1M AAV. Rutherford has no intentions of re-signing Cole, so moving him now for an asset makes good business sense. Rutherford needs to bolster his goaltending. Botterill has pending RFA Robin Lehner, who is an intriguing player for Rutherford to consider acquiring to fortify his goaltending depth. Pens starting goalie Matt Murray hasn’t played since suffering an injury on November 27. In Murray’s absence, rookie Tristan Jarry has filled in the void nicely. In 9 starts, Jarry is 5-2 with a 2.49 GAA and .919 SV%.
Lehner, 26, has been a stalwart in his last four starts. Lehner has stopped 149 of 159 shots (.937 SV%) in his last four games.
In those four games, Lehner has also stopped 110 of 114 shots faced during 5-on-5 play (.965 SV%), which includes one goal allowed with an opponent’s extra attacker on the ice.
Why would Botterill be so quick to trade Lehner? The Sabres would still have veteran Chad Johnson to plug in as their starting goalie. The Sabres are hoping that their goalie of the future is Linus Ullmark, who continues to impress in AHL Rochester (12-3-1 this season). Adam Wilcox is playing well as Ullmark’s backup. Trading Lehner would create a need to recall Lehner to Buffalo. Wilcox and Jonas Johansson would then share the net in Rochester. Johansson played seven games this season for the Amerks before being loaned to the Cincinnati Cyclones of the ECHL.
Jim Rutherford would be wise have daily conversations with Jason Botterill in the event the Penguins lose games to the Goldden Knights, Coyotes and Avalanche.
Rutherford better hope that Botterill doesn't get beaten to the punch with trade proposals for Evander Kane from Vancouver, Dallas, Calgary, Anaheim, Los Angeles, New Jersey, Las Vegas, or Nashville.
Can Rutherford afford to re-sign Kane to a long term contract after this season? Yes. Winger Patric Hornqvist, 30, will be UFA come July 1, 2018. Hornqvist is a $4.25 million cap hit this season. Subtract Hornqvist and Cole, and that’s a cost savings of $6.35 million. The NHL salary cap is expected to swell to $80 million next season for $75 million. Rutherford will have the autonomy to re-sign Kane for seven years and $49 million.
Crosby, Malikin, and Kessel are in their thirties. They need a shoulder to lean on in terms of scoring. Adding a twenty something gun like Kane will inject more skill, truculence and scoring moving forward. Rutherford and Sullivan won’t win a third consecutive Stanley Cup with their roster as its presently constructed.
Join the Discussion:
»