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After the players went to the media earlier in the day, the time was up for management. As usual, the general manager, Jim Rutherford, was not disappointed in giving much detail. Some of these details, however, do not seem very encouraging for the future of the Penguins.
Rutherford: "The best thing for me to do is take some time and think about it. I meet so many people who have an opinion (hockey players, coaches, owners). Some important decisions will have to be made. be done. There will be changes in our team. "-SK
– Pens inside the spoon (@PensInsideScoop) April 18, 2019
Rutherford: I do not know [how significant changes will be] yet because we are always very excited to know how it ended. I think the best thing for me to do is take some time. I am meeting all those who have ideas.
– Angie (@ acarducci) April 18, 2019
The emotion is normal after being swept in the first round. Let's hope this collapses and logic is applied, because what Rutherford detailed in more detail did not seem very logical, especially his view of the team's defense performance this season.
Jim Rutherford was asked about the speed of the Penguins on the blue line:
"I think our defense is the best since I've been here as a group."
– Seth Rorabaugh (@SethRorabaugh) April 18, 2019
Rutherford on D: "I think our defense is the best since I've been here as a band, you still like the mobile defensemen and the guys who can move the puck, we have one on each pair, and now we have enough to push back. "-SK
– Pens inside the spoon (@PensInsideScoop) April 18, 2019
The Penguins this season passing were:
-
26th overall in the NHL (33.3 per game)
- 29th overall 5v5 authorized Corsi events
- 25th overall 5v5 authorized Fenwick events
- 16 out of 5v5 tagged opportunities allowed
- 17th in 5v5 high chances of danger allowed
(Statistics via Natural Stat Trick)
This is the bottom half of the league for everything and almost absolute for the most part. The only statistics that they excelled under the defensive were the guards' performances.
The "pushback" elements of the defense, referring to the acquisition of Jack Johnson and Erik Gudbranson over the past 12 months, have been at best mixed. If we consider that the combined ceiling of salaries is $ 7.25 million, the proposal goes even further. Current results were defensively below average.
If Rutherford was going to get on well, we had Brian Dumoulin and Kris Letang in top pairs, Justin Schultz and Olli Maatta to be in the top four and a bit deeper, that's one thing. Assuming the way forward is with more players like Johnson and Gudbranson, it's another very different and not very good thing.
Rutherford: "We have a lot of good players and players with good CVs who have won the Stanley Cup, and depending on the changes we decide to make, we have a valuable asset to make some of these changes." -SK
– Pens inside the spoon (@PensInsideScoop) April 18, 2019
One would think that the changes begin with Maatta, a good scratch in the playoffs. Would it be expanded to Phil Kessel? Patric Hornqvist? Bryan Rust?
Rutherford: "During the years we won, we were a team, we were a united team, I have not seen it this year since the first day, they did not get together as a team. that the guys are too happy with their career having won the Stanley Cup. "-SK
– Pens inside the spoon (@PensInsideScoop) April 18, 2019
One question I would like to ask is this: how close can a team be when the GM exchanges six of the 23 players who start the season after four months? And that does not even count Tanner Pearson who was traded and then traded in the season! Maybe the interference of GM and the constant craft do-it-yourself would ban the chemistry of construction? Just a thought.
As Gretz wrote yesterday for NBC, the composition and construction of the Pens' alignment over the last two years has been at best uncertain, at worst a total change in direction from what they had been successful at in 2016 and 2017:
The most confusing thing about all of this is building the list and a lot of movements seem – focus on appear – disagree with the way the coach wanted the team to play from the day he arrived behind the bench. I do not know anything about the working relationship between Rutherford and Sullivan and the question of whether they stay on the same wave length with respect to building the team, but the 39, optics seems simply strange.
Reaves paid the high price and the coach did not face it. The general manager had Johnson signed all season and, despite his 82 regular season games, he did not seem to deserve a place in the group in the first game of the playoffs. A team that wants to play fast and beat the teams in transition and with possession of the puck suddenly has a game of transition and incoherent possession because the players in the back can not play the necessary games to feed it.
But a bad set for the individual players happens, and sometimes they are even understandable and defensible because even the best players have bad distances.
What is neither understandable nor defensible readily takes away from something that has worked. That's what the Penguins did and that's a big part of why their season went the same way.
The gestures they made this summer will tell us a lot about what they have learned.
In view of these comments, it seems that little has been learned. We can all see that after not winning a single playoff game this season, the Pens still have a long way to go. Changes will be made and players come and go.
Can Rutherford regain what he did to build this team in his early days? Or will his vision cause more suffering than the team has gone through recently? Let's hope the team can identify exactly what it needs, then get there and get there.
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