What’s next? Isn’t that the (Pittsburgh) gold question right now for the Penguins?
Perhaps Marc-Andre Fleury will get traded. Maybe another defenseman will get hurt. Or, worse, ingest entirely too much nerve tonic. You never know.
What we do know goes something like this:
• General manager Jim Rutherford isn’t done. He said Thursday that, within the next 24 hours, the Penguins will decide whether they want to add another defenseman.
In addition, of course, to Ron Hainsey, 35, whom the Penguins acquired Thursday for a second-round draft choice in 2017 and minor league forward Danny Kristo.
“You can look at that two ways,” Rutherford explained. “You add another NHL defenseman, you’re totally healthy, then you have a situation you have to deal with where you have one or two guys who aren’t happy sitting in the stands. You can look at it the other way where you never have enough, you’re hurt all the time, and you may need one. We’re thinking about that right now.”
It’s important to remember, too, that Rutherford is not the sit-on-his-hands type. Never has been.
• Something the Penguins aren’t thinking about is putting Olli Maatta (hand) or Trevor Daley (knee) on long-term injured reserve.
Both will miss roughly the rest of the regular season, but Rutherford indicated Thursday that those timelines could be on the shorter end.
Putting Maatta and Daley on injured reserve, and subsequently ending their regular seasons, could mean an extra $7,383,333 to spend. The downside there is you lose their services for the regular season, assuming you re-allocate those dollars on other players.
There’s no salary cap in the postseason.
“Right now, we think they’ll be back before the regular season’s over,” Rutherford said.
• Rutherford isn’t budging from his stated desire to keep Fleury.
“We play a lot of games in March,” Rutherford said. “You don’t know when players are going to get hurt. He’s handled the situation very well. I’m going to have some communication with him between now and the deadline and see exactly where he sits and how he feels. That will play a part in the final decision. I’m not going to get too far ahead of myself because he very well could be part of our team down the stretch.”
• Also know that this is not easy on Fleury. His answers are short — not dripping with any sort of malice, just with a what-do-you-want-me-to-say sort of awkwardness. He doesn’t want to upset any apple carts. The smile never leaves.
“I’m not going to do anything to get traded,” Fleury answered when asked whether he could envision a scenario where he would ask for a trade. “You just have to do what’s best for the team.”
No matter what sort of rumors he hears, Fleury will continue smiling and going home to play with his children, trying to forget, even for a minute, about his open-ended future.
“Kids are good,” Fleury said. “They change your mind and keep you busy. It’s still there, but what are you going to do? You just have to deal with it.”
• Something big could still happen. Perhaps Matt Duchene from Colorado. Or maybe Mario Lemieux will un-retire. He skated on the second rink at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex, in relative anonymity as his team practiced on the sheet next door.
“There’s always possibilities,” Rutherford said. “You have to get real creative. There’s always ways to figure out a deal if it’s there. Like I said, it will be very creative. You can always improve your team. We’ll stay in the mix right up until the deadline and see what happens.”
Jason Mackey: jmackey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @JMackeyPG.
First Published: February 24, 2017, 5:00 a.m.
