Rutherford worthy of hockey hall
Rutherford finds greatest success building winners
When an NHL team calls in the local media on July 1 for a big announcement, it usually means a major signing.
And that’s how the Pittsburgh Penguins treated a contract extension back in 2016 for Jim Rutherford, who had just become the first post-expansion general manager to win the Stanley Cup with two different teams.
Not one to rest on his laurels and wisely not leaving Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin to do all the heavy lifting, Rutherford fine-tuned the team again and the Penguins became back-to-back champions, something not accomplished since Scotty Bowman’s Red Wings almost 20 years earlier.
This season, they’ll go for a fifth straight 100-point season, again with Rutherford mixing and matching to stay ahead in the Metropolitan Division. But the team will be taking time out this weekend to celebrate his induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame as a builder of the game.
As a kid in the early 1960s, he once travelled to the hall’s original home on Toronto’s CNE grounds from his home in Beeton, Ont. to watch one of the induction ceremonies.
“It was a day where I thought ‘Man, this is really special,’ ” Rutherford said. “So now here I am, going to be inducted, too.”
A contingent from Carolina will also be present, including previous builder inductee Peter Karmanos. He recognized Rutherford’s hockey acumen in the early 1980s as he assembled the Detroit area’s influential Compuware minor hockey program.
Their relationship came full circle in 2006, when Rutherford managed the Hurricanes to the Cup, one of the first Sun Belt teams to win it, after moving from Hartford, Conn.
“When I retired as a player (457 NHL games in net), I met Peter through someone and he asked me to run a specialty goalie school. At that time, they really didn’t have them. It was very successful. He came and watched and the day after Labour Day offered me a job,” he said. “I started a 30-year relationship with him then. He was very loyal to me and I learned a lot from him. His goal was always to get an NHL team. He said: ‘You know, just stick with me and we’ll get one.’”
Rutherford is one of 10 men to have won the NHL’S fairly new GM of the year award for his work in 2015-16. One of his most scrutinized trades of that time was acquiring Phil Kessel from the Maple Leafs. While the shy winger was a misfit in Toronto, he thrived in Steeltown on two Cup teams. When it came time to move Kessel, Rutherford did so as part of a youth movement.
“Jim’s strengths are obvious,” said fellow builder and long time NHL GM Cliff Fletcher. “No. 1, a very good knowledge of the game, but No. 2, he’s a very patient individual who doesn’t make knee-jerk decisions. He brings that calmness to the job.
“A lot of people were surprised when he got into management, because not that many players get involved. But once he established himself at that end of the business, he showed day in and day out that he’d have a very successful career.”
Rutherford cherishes that first Cup, with a Hurricanes team that less than a decade earlier had limped out of Connecticut and was playing in a minor-league arena in Greensboro, N.C.
“It was a little bit unexpected,” he said of the first club to win a salary cap Cup after the lost lockout year. “We were trying to do it on a proper budget. We kind of got the jump on it and were able to add some good free agents at the right time. We had great leadership with Rod Brind’amour and Cam Ward in goal.”
Franchise great Ron Francis reminded people Rutherford had convinced the league to bring the draft and NHL all-star game to Raleigh, N.C., which further legitimized hockey in the region known for basketball, football and car racing. Rutherford had retired in 2014, but made a surprise comeback with the Pens.
“I think the longevity for me is the fact that I’ve worked with really good people,” he said. “We won the Cup in Carolina against the odds. Then I was fortunate to have the opportunity to be hired by Pittsburgh. I’ve been fortunate to be in the right place at the right time.”