National Post (National Edition)
Pens not getting ahead of selves
‘Three-peat’ a distant vision after slow start
Jim Rutherford won’t use the word “threepeat.” It’s a superstitious thing. As a longtime hockey executive who has won three Stanley Cups in two different cities, the Pittsburgh Penguins GM has learned not to tempt the hockey gods. Toss in the fact he’s also a former NHL goalie and, well, you’ve got a hockey guy with any number of quirks, including an old goalie staple of not talking on game days.
What Rutherford will say is that the bull’s-eye on their backs is a lot bigger these days.
How big? The Penguins have been blown out twice already — a 10-1 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on the second day of the season and most recently a 7-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday. Pittsburgh still has the second-best record in the Metropolitan Division.
But aside from a 4-0 win against Nashville, all of the wins so far this season have been decided by a single goal.
“We don’t get any easy games, that’s for sure,” Rutherford said Monday. “We get everybody’s A-game and over the long haul it works out better for us, because it pushes us during the season. Anyway, that’s part of winning.”
Indeed, most teams would love to have the Penguins’ problems. After winning the Cup last season, they became the first back-to-back champs in nearly two decades. With Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and the core of the roster back together, online betting website, Bodog.com, recently listed Pittsburgh — along with the Blackhawks and the Edmonton Oilers — as 12-1 favourites to three-peat.
Then again, this hasn’t looked like a Cup favourite in the early going.
Maybe that’s why Rutherford has been tinkering with the lineup in the last few days, acquiring third-line centre Riley Sheahan from the Detroit Red Wings and placing goalie Antti Niemi on waivers over the weekend.
“We’ve had some games where we’ve played well as a team, had our A-game and been really good, and then we’ve had some games where we haven’t been as good,” said Rutherford. “But there’s not a lot of things in the first nine or 10 games that have overly surprised me. I can’t say that I’m fine with where we’re at, but I feel pretty good about my team.”
In other words, the expectations remain the same as last year.
But the reality is that Pittsburgh has a tougher road to travel this time around.
For one, the Penguins are not nearly as deep between the pipes, having lost backup goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury to the Vegas Golden Knights in the expansion draft. His replacement, Niemi, was in net for all three regulation-time losses this season and was assigned to the minors after giving up seven goals to the Lightning on Saturday.
Tristan Jarry, who was a second-round draft pick in 2013, was expected to get called up for Tuesday’s game.
“Ideally, what I wanted was for him to continue developing in the American Hockey League and play more games. But it appears at this point in time, that’s going to have to be accelerated,” Rutherford said of the 22-year-old Jarry, adding that last season’s tandem of Matt Murray and Fleury was a big reason for Pittsburgh’s success.
“It goes without saying,” he said. “(Murray and Fleury) are both No. 1 goalies. It was a nice luxury. But of course, for cap reasons, that couldn’t keep forever.”
The team also no longer has third-line centre Nick Bonino and veterans Chris Kunitz and Matt Cullen, which is why Rutherford picked up Sheahan.
“Last year, I think we only made one change and we were fortunate where we were in the cycle, contractwise, where we didn’t have to make big changes because of cap purposes. But this season, there had to be more changes made.”
The biggest change from last year is that there is more mileage on the players’ bodies. Appearing in back-toback finals meant that Crosby has played in 203 games (155 in the regular season and 48 in the playoffs).
That’s 63 more games than Edmonton’s Connor McDavid has played in the same amount of time.
For that reason, Rutherford isn’t putting too much stock in the first three months of the season. He’s happy Crosby and Malkin each have 10 points in nine games and that Murray has picked up a point in every game that he has started.
But really, he’s looking forward to the spring.
“It’s not about getting the players thinking about being hungry enough,” said Rutherford.
“We have a real character group of players who are hungry and want to win. It’s more about having the proper time to be rested, not only physically but mentally, and sometimes that takes a little bit of time into the season. As time goes on here, our team will get on track and become more consistent.”
“Now if we didn’t have such a short off-season, I would have a totally different viewpoint.”