Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford gushed and gushed over the Hockey Hall of Fame minutes after he and the team’s leadership group donated a Stanley Cup ring to a commemorative display on Wednesday.
But while Rutherford was happy to enjoy the visit to hockey’s Mecca, there’s no denying that things aren’t exactly perfect in Penguins land. There's work to be done, and Rutherford knows it.
Depth scoring has been identified as a trouble spot.
The Penguins have a defenseman — Ian Cole — who could be moved at any minute.
And inconsistency has been the story of their season thus far.
“I guess we’ve handled it OK,” Rutherford said when asked how he thinks his team has handled being the defending champs again.
“It hasn’t translated into us playing the way we’re capable of playing. We have to get back to that.
“It’s been tough on our team when you go back-to-back and have two short offseasons, to have the kind of schedule we’ve had to start the season.”
That schedule is about to relax.
The Penguins played Monday and don’t have a game again until Friday. Saturday starts a stretch of five consecutive home games before a trip to Vegas, Arizona and Colorado — at least two, and probably three, they should win.
There’s no back-to-backs in the bunch. Not even three in four nights. Not until 2018.
“We’re getting to the point now where we’re getting a few more days off,” Rutherford said. “We can hopefully play with more consistency. I can hopefully add a player or two along the way here to give us a better chance to do that.”
Wait, what? Rutherford needs to add a player?
Not so fast.
Asked a follow-up question about whether he views a trade as necessary at this point to inject life into his team, Rutherford downplayed it a bit.
“I’ve always felt that way, right from the start,” Rutherford said. “Even if we had won five more games, I’d still be looking at doing that.
“I can tell you, it’s really hard to make trades in November and December. But if you get creative enough, you can usually figure something out.”
The Penguins have Cole on the trading block, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was the first to report. As expected, there has been no shortage of interest.
If Rutherford was to move Cole — in a creative deal, as he alluded to — it would mean one more player gone from their back-to-back Cup teams.
Losing leadership from those teams has probably hit the Penguins harder than they expected, and Cole would only make it worse.
Provided, of course, that they didn’t get a significant voice/presence back.
“The hardest part this year has been losing some key players,” Rutherford said of the challenges this group has faced. “The year before, we were in good cap position. We were able to keep most of our team.
“Going into this year, we lost some key guys. Trying to replace those guys has been the most difficult thing.”
They really haven’t, if you think about.
Matt Hunwick and Antti Niemi were Rutherford’s moves on July 1. Riley Sheahan came later.
Any comparison to what was brought by Chris Kunitz, Matt Cullen, Marc-Andre Fleury, Ron Hainsey and Nick Bonino — no offense to the first three — would be laughable.
Which is why what Rutherford let slip — that he might soon add a player or two as the Penguins enter a key portion of their schedule — is definitely worth monitoring.
Jason Mackey: jmackey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @JMackeyPG.
First Published: November 30, 2017, 1:54 a.m.
