Rutherford transformed Penguins
GM took over fun team, made it serious Cup threat
If the Pittsburgh Penguins win the Eastern Conference finals Thursday against the Tampa Bay Lightning, general manager Jim Rutherford’s fingerprints will be all over the trophy.
In 23 months, Rutherford has redesigned the Penguins, transforming them from an entertaining but inconsistent team into a hard-to-play-against Stanley Cup contender.
Of the 20 players who helped the Penguins post a 5-2 win Tuesday in Game 6, 13 have been added to the roster since Rutherford took over June 6, 2014. A 14th Rutherford acquisition, defenseman Trevor Daley, would be in the lineup if not for a broken ankle.
Rutherford has turned over 70% of the team’s roster without anyone talking about rebuilding or taking a step backward.
Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, Marc-Andre Fleury, Chris Kunitz, Olli Maatta and Brian Dumoulin are the seven Game 6 players who were on the roster when Rutherford was hired.
That’s obviously a high-quality group of holdovers. But the previous general manager, Ray Shero, and coach, Dan Bylsma, lost their jobs because those players didn’t seem in sync during the 2014 postseason. The owners, chiefly Mario Lemieux, obviously didn’t think the Penguins were playing at a level that could carry them through four rounds of the playoffs.
No matter what happens Thursday (8 p.m. ET, NBC Sports
The Penguins are dramatically different today than they were in 2014. They are hungrier, more resilient and much faster than they were before Jim Rutherford took over.
Network), no one can say Rutherford’s Penguins aren’t playing a style that wins in the postseason.
The Penguins are dramatically different today than they were in 2014. They are hungrier, more resilient and much faster than they were before Rutherford took over.
It took Rutherford two tries to get the coaching piece right. He first hired Mike Johnston, but his puck-possession style wasn’t the right fit.
When Rutherford decided early this season that Johnston’s tactics and approach weren’t working, he didn’t wait to see how it would play out. He fired Johnston and hired Mike Sullivan, a former Boston Bruins head coach who was coaching WilkesBarre/Scranton (Pa.), the Penguins’ affiliate in the American Hockey League. Sullivan is known for holding players accountable without alienating them.
His buddy, Columbus Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella, says Sullivan can hold a player’s feet to the fire without burning his relationship with that player.
Sullivan was the perfect fit. It should be noted that team captain Crosby likes tough coaches. He even liked Michel Therrien when he was Pittsburgh’s coach. It helps when your captain is among the first to buy in. This group believes in Sullivan.
Meanwhile, Rutherford decid- ed coming out of training camp that the Penguins, despite having Crosby, Letang and Phil Kessel, among others, were not fast enough. He traded for Carl Hagelin, one of the league’s fastest players. He acquired skating defenseman Daley from the Chicago Blackhawks, making the team’s puck moving quicker.
Rutherford, who came to the Penguins from the Carolina Hurricanes, has a long history of being one of the NHL’s most aggressive traders. He’s well-liked around the NHL, and he knows everyone. People like talking to him. Rutherford seems to be a salesman at heart, because he somehow manages to make deals in an era when general managers constantly complain that deals are hard to make.
The promotions of Conor Sheary and Bryan Rust from the AHL also gave the team more zip.
Through Sullivan’s encouragement, the Penguins use their speed equally well for offensive bursts and for disruptive defensive coverage. It’s difficult for an opponent to launch its offense when the Penguins are on them so quickly.
Today, Pittsburgh fans are appreciative of the work Rutherford has done to redesign the Penguins. They weren’t enamored with the decision to hire Rutherford two years ago. He was 65, and some fans viewed him as a retread or a placeholder until the Penguins decided who should be the long-term general manager.
Even Rutherford said he would be general manager for only two or three years. When the Penguins were ousted from the playoffs last year in the first round, there were fans who thought one season was enough.
But everything has changed in Pittsburgh.
Today, if the Penguins reupped Rutherford for three more seasons, the deal would be applauded. At 67, Rutherford has gone from being a short-term fix to the long-term solution.