Penguins’ shakeup ahead?
The team that doesn’t get as much credit as it deserves — the Pittsburgh Penguins — are at a crossroads, and they’re hearing it from their general manager.
Jim Rutherford suggested he’s considering a shakeup if his two-time defending Stanley Cup champs can’t start gaining some traction. And that was before his team dropped a 2-1 verdict on Thursday to expansion Vegas.
Pittsburgh fell into a tough trap against the Golden Knights, who worked their tails off to earn a win for former Pens goalie Marc-Andre Fleury. And clearly there’s no embarrassment losing to Vegas, especially in Las Vegas. The Golden Knights, 12-2-1 at home, are a fast, tenacious, tight and well-coached team.
The question now is whether Rutherford will follow through if the Pens don’t earn points at Arizona on Saturday and at Colorado on Monday. Here’s what Rutherford told the Pittsburgh PostGazette at midweek:
“We’re coming into a critical period where we’ll make a decision whether we need to shake things up or not,” he said. “We are at a point where we’re slipping in the wrong direction.”
The GM said the results are not matching the talent on the roster, and that if it doesn’t change “I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that a major trade would come out of this.”
Strong words for a team that keeps finding a way to get it done regardless of adversity or the fact it has had a target on its back for more than 24 months. No matter if captain Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin or Kris Letang have been sidelined with injury for extended periods, Pittsburgh has always found an answer.
The concern is that they’ve played a ton of hockey as a group while winning those two Cups, and they’re healthy yet they sit in sixth place in the uber-competitive Metropolitan Division.
Losers of four of five, Pittsburgh has a minus-11 goal differential (minus-28 during 5-on-5), is 18th on the penalty kill, struggles with slow starts and is 6-9-2 on the road.
Pittsburgh has done a terrific job of folding in young players including Jake Guentzel, Conor Sheary, Bryan Rust, Tom Kuhnhackl, Brian Dumoulin and Matt Murray, and they don’t lack star power with Phil Kessel and Patric Hornqvist joining Crosby, Malkin and Letang.
It’s hard to believe Rutherford won’t show patience past the current road trip, but you can bet he’s going to get plenty of calls in the meantime.
Preds feed on D: The Predators head into Saturday’s game at Calgary having earned at least a point in 17 of their past 19 games (15-2-2). A big part of Nashville’s success goes to a contribution from its blue line. The Preds have a league-leading 81 points from their defensemen, including 21 each from
Roman Josi (seven goals, 14 assists), P.K. Subban (six goals, 15 assists) and
Mattias Ekholm (six goals, 15 assists).
Outdoors for real: Yes, it really will be the first time the Senators play outdoors when they host Montreal in front of 36,000 fans at Lansdowne Stadium in Ottawa on Sunday. The Sens were scheduled to play outdoors during the 2014 Heritage Classic at Vancouver, but rain forced the roof to be closed at B.C. Place Stadium.
Bouncing back: One week, Flyers coach Dave
Hakstol is rumored to be walking the plank as Philadelphia was mired in a 10-game losing streak (0-5-5) and the next he’s bench boss of only the fifth team to win as many as five straight following a drought of 10 games or more. The others include the 1966-67 Maple Leafs, ’92-93 Flames, ’94-95 Blackhawks and ’05-06 Sharks. San Jose’s bounce back of six straight wins coincided with the acquisition of center Joe Thornton. Briefly: Stars goalie Kari
Lehtonen surpassed one-time Shark Miikka
Kiprusoff for most appearances by a Finnishborn netminder with his 624th game at midweek. … Toronto’s Patrick Marleau became the fourth active player and 60th overall to reach 1,100 points with his 519th goal Tuesday, which moved him into sole possession of 37th place on that list. The former longtime Shark’s 1,525th career game that night moved him into sole possession of 16th place on the all-time list.