Among NHL general managers, only Toronto’s Lou Lamoriello — who’s 75 — is older than Jim Rutherford, 69.
“I had no idea,” Penguins president/CEO David Morehouse said when I brought it up late Monday night following a 4-3 overtime victory over the Calgary Flames.
The list of those better than Rutherford right now might be shorter, which is the real reason I ended up speaking with Morehouse outside of the Penguins dressing room.
I had been told by numerous people within the organization that Rutherford was the one who had the foresight to conceptualize and work to complete the Derick Brassard deal, a unique transaction that was easily one of the funkiest of Rutherford’s long and successful career. Others, of course, helped. But Rutherford drove the bus.
As expected, Rutherford denied any shred of credit when we spoke Sunday afternoon, Yet the acquisition of Brassard — at a 40-percent discount — sort of speaks for itself.
We’re talking someone pushing 70 here who should theoretically be thinking about retirement. Yet instead of trying to unfold a map when a couple roads were closed, Rutherford basically invented an app that’s better than Waze.
“He’s constantly looking for new ways to do things,” Morehouse said. “That’s a young thinker. That’s not an old guy. He’s always been like that. He continues to be like that. He continues to find new ways to try and make the team better.”
2. Where does this come from, you might ask? The Rutherford genes are apparently something else.
Rutherford’s mom is 89 years old. Still lives in the house she grew up in, although Jim worries that it may be time for a nursing home.
“She can remember more than five people combined,” Jim joked during our conversation Sunday afternoon as he drove from Pittsburgh to his hometown of Beeton, Ontario to visit her.
3. During our chat, I asked Rutherford about him being sort of the visionary on the strange way this all came together.
You’ll see his answer does nothing but deflect the credit.
“For a long time we weren’t in on Brassard because we really never felt that we could make it happen,” Rutherford said. “Then probably 4-5 days before it happened we got involved with it. We tried to figure out how we could make it work. Then through a different conversation with Vegas, they said that they could be part of this. Once that happened, then everybody had to put their thoughts in there and try to figure out how to make it all work.”
Less aggressive GMs might move on and target something else, thinking that a deal’s simply not there. Not Rutherford. He was convinced that Brassard was the piece his team needed to contend and kept after it.
4. It’s hardly the first time a bold move has happened during Rutherford’s tenure here.
Morehouse drew an awesome analogy to the players Rutherford oversees and the big-game success they’ve had the past two seasons.
“The things that most people don’t think are possible, he makes possible,” Morehouse said. “He brings players in all the time where we seemingly don’t have cap room or makes the maneuver like he did in this deal.
“Or it’s a player who was underperforming in another market, he comes here, [Rutherford] puts him with the right people, and they play well. It’s not by accident we have two Stanley Cups in a row.
“Jim’s very much in charge and makes the right decisions at the right time. Like a lot of our players, he’s a clutch performer.”
5. Rutherford is one of the chattiest GMs with media. He genuinely likes it — so long as it doesn’t occur the day of a game. He loves talking baseball, politics, food or kids, whatever. Everybody has their thing with him.
The one time that usually disappears is when Rutherford has gotten serious about a deal.
We had a few conversations around the deadline that … let’s just say didn’t include a lot of off-the-record banter.
There have been two times where Rutherford has appeared especially locked-in: the Phil Kessel trade and this. When we talked Sunday, I asked him if that was a fair assessment.
“Yeah, I would say so in the overall scheme of things,” Rutherford said. “Derick’s a good player.”
6. Brassard is not only a good player, but he’s the right player.
Which is another reason why Rutherford was so laser-focused on this one, similar to how adamant Rutherford was that Kessel was the move he had to make.
Brassard can contribute on special teams. He could easily score 25 or 30 goals a season. He can make his linemates better. And he may have only scratched the surface of that potential
“As time goes along, we’ll even see it more,” Rutherford said of Brassard’s fit in Pittsburgh. “And like I said, when he starts the season right from camp, you start with that group of guys … that’s how you ultimately win: strength down the middle.”
7. The Penguins like Riley Sheahan and have been even more impressed lately with the offense he’s integrated into his game. But there was a concern with what would happen if Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin got hurt.
You hate to think like that, but if you’re running a team, you pretty much have to. The Penguins didn’t have a very good contingency plan. Brassard changed that.
“He can play the second-line role if necessary,” Rutherford said. “[Riley] Sheahan can move up and play higher up in the lineup. Sheahan can play on the left wing on any one of those lines. It just gives us more depth and more strength when we really need it.”
8. Club control was also huge. Think back to last July, when the Penguins lost Nick Bonino. To make a move, Rutherford said all along that he wanted someone under contract for a couple years.
“Because we not only need to look at what we’re doing this year but what we’re capable of doing next year,” Rutherford said. “To have that center-ice structure in place for next year, right from the start of the season, was very important.”
9. One thing I didn’t realize about this trade and the two others that Rutherford has made this season was that all of them netted former first-round picks:
I know a first-round pick doesn't guarantee greatness, but it's pretty crazy when you think about what the Pens have added this season:
— Jason Mackey (@JMackeyPG) March 5, 2018
Riley Sheahan -- 1st round, 21st overall, 2010
Jamie Oleksiak -- 1st round, 14th overall, 2011
Derick Brassard -- 1st round, 6th overall, 2006
“Our team over the course of the year became a lot stronger,” Rutherford said.
10. There were certain salary-cap implications to this deal — aren’t there always with the Penguins? — and those, I found out, were handled by assistant general manager Jason Karmanos and director of hockey research Sam Ventura.
Current Buffalo Sabres general manager Jason Botterill was a salary-cap whiz here for many years, but it looks like those duties have been divided.
“Jason’s done it before,” Rutherford said. “He was doing it in Carolina. We weren’t a cap team, but he understands it. With Sam there also, we have the two guys who stay on top of that.”
11. A key component of doing what the Penguins did cap-wise with Brassard was also having the flexibility to add a defenseman at the trade deadline.
Obviously that didn’t happen. I asked Rutherford why not.
“We were in, I would say, on a minimum of three guys where we felt that our offers were as good as or better than where they ended up,” Rutherford said.
Read into that what you will.
Aside from the idea that the Penguins, at least in some way, wanted to bolster their defense, it sounds to me like other teams didn’t want to deal with the two-time Stanley Cup champs.
Rutherford, as you might expect, denied that.
“They didn’t materialize,” Rutherford said. “It doesn’t matter what we think. It matters what the other team thinks — certain players and prospects and all that. It’s just the way it falls sometimes.”
12. Moving on … saw an interesting sight late last Thursday in Boston: Patrice Bergeron, rocking a walking boot, chatting with Penguins coach Mike Sullivan outside of the Penguins dressing room.
Before you freak out, relax. Bergeron played for Sullivan in Boston. It’s nothing more than that. Happens all the time.
But given the eight goals the Penguins allowed that night, it wouldn’t have surprised me if Sullivan tried to sneak Bergeron home in his carry-on.
13. Hopefully you saw my story on Kevin Stevens. If you didn’t, the link is here.
Had a great time doing it, but the one thing I wanted to save for this space was much Stevens loved just talking hockey.
Every commercial break during his radio show, Stevens would lean over and want to talk about something.
Letang has looked better, huh?
Matt Murray gonna be OK?
Stuff like that. Was really, really fun — and an honor — to talk hockey with “Artie.”
14. As I wrote, Stevens watches pretty much every Penguins game from his home in Weymouth, Mass.
I couldn’t help but ask what he thought of Patric Hornqvist, another terrific power forward for the Penguins.
“He’s a special player,” Stevens said. “I know he means a lot to all the guys in Pittsburgh. They love him there. He goes to the front of the net and bangs around a little bit. Just a good guy. He’s a guy who brings a special element; they don’t have a lot of guys like that — who will stand there and take the beating that he takes. He’s a special guy to watch.”
15. One of the reasons Stevens likes watching the Penguins is because it makes him think about the days when he didn’t struggle with addiction, when he was simply the NHL’s most dominant power forward.
“I have a lot of friends there,” Stevens said. “They might show Mario [Lemieux] in the [owner’s box]. They might show [Mark Recchi] on the bench.
“When I see the Penguins win, it makes me feel good.”
Enough can’t be said for the support the Penguins have given Stevens in his battle with addiction. Wouldn’t have blamed the Penguins — or any other franchise — from trying to divorce themselves from this. They didn’t. Not that Lemieux needs any help looking like an exemplary, compassionate person, but here’s yet another example.
16. One last anecdote from the Stevens story.
Kelli Wilson, Kevin’s sister, told me about the time Kevin spoke at Teen Challenge, a Christian-based recovery program for addicts, and they met with Sean Merrill, the director.
“You don’t swear your testimonial, do you?’ ” Kelli remembered Merrill asking.
“Kevin said, ‘I could.’ ”
It wasn’t so much a warning as it was a (sarcastic) offer. Such humor has helped Stevens quite a bit in his new venture.
17. You get a lot of half-finished stories in this business. It’s one of the reasons this column was started.
One of those has been rolling around in my brain this week, and it was supposed to be about how goaltenders are just odd birds.
I asked Rutherford about this back in October. His answer still makes me laugh.
“What people haven’t figured out is we’re not the oddballs,” Rutherford said. “They are.”
18. I kicked up dust on this story around the time the Penguins went to Florida in October, meaning I thought it would be a good thing to take to Roberto Luongo, for a long time one of the NHL’s best follows on Twitter.
“I’ve been around a while,” Luongo said about letting his goofy personality shine through. “I wasn’t quite like that at the beginning. Once you get comfortable, you feel a little bit more confident in yourself and who you are..”
19. A couple of current-team-related items …
a. The Penguins badly need either Tristan Jarry or Casey DeSmith to take this thing and run with it — at least until Matt Murray gets back — and I’m not the only one who’s watching that.
Either guy can look terrific or like it’s his first hockey game ever, and nobody knows which one it’s going to be until it happens.
Suffice to say, that’s not how anyone in charge wants to live.
b. How does a puck in practice — not shot terribly hard, mind you — concuss a goalie?
Would not be surprised if the Penguins took a closer look at how Murray’s mask was constructed to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
c. I give Kessel a lot of credit. He’s not healthy. His morning skate in Boston lasted all of seven minutes, for crying out loud.
But he’s refused to come out of the lineup and has not at all been a hindrance. In fact, he’s been terrific and had two more assists Monday.
Kessel was injured late in the Carolina game on Feb. 23, after he had scored a pair of goals. In the five since, Kessel has a goal and six assists.
20. Funny story this week involving Mrs. Jen Bullano (@pensPRLady). For those of you who don’t know, Jen coordinates interviews for TV, serves as a liaison between media and players/coaches, works with photographers and broadcasters and a billion things that I could never possibly list.
Anyway, Josh Yohe (from the The Athletic) and I both requested to speak with Penguins assistant Mark Recchi last week in Boston, a perk reserved for the traveling beat reporters. While Recchi showered and changed into his suit, Josh, Jen and I waited outside the coaches’ office, the rest of the team having left for the bus.
Sullivan walked down the hall. Jen asked Sullivan to check and see if Recchi is dressed and let him know Josh and I were waiting to ask him a couple questions.
“You guys know she’s my boss, right?” Sullivan joked to me and Josh.
When the mood is right, Sullivan really does have a terrific sense of humor.
Jason Mackey: jmackey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @JMackeyPG.
First Published: March 6, 2018, 1:00 p.m.
