The Penguins are better but not by Much
Jack Johnson is no longer a Pittsburgh Penguin. Mission accomplished, pop the champagne. No really, Johnson no longer being a Penguin automatically makes this team better. If you're reading this you probably are already aware of how much of a black hole he was to this team. Ok so the Penguins, who lost to the Montreal Canadiens in the play-in-round of the 2020 Covid Stanley Cup Playoffs are "better".
The Penguins re-signed defensemen Jusso Rikola and Chad Ruhwedel to two-way contracts, and as of right now it looks like Ruhwedel, who Josh Yohe said the coaching staff was "in love with" would be the right-handed dman on the 3rd-pair. That's a safe and affordable play. Ruhwedel is what he is, a safe two-way dman who can do just enough to let you know he's a real life NHL player, but won't do enough to make you forget he played for the team when you're playing a Penguins' related trivia game 10 years from now. I also like Rikola, who had better metrics albeit in a smaller sample size than both Johnson and Schultz, but I was surprised to see him re-sign here since it felt like he ran over Mike Sullivan's dog the way Sullivan would yank him out of the lineup the minute he made even the most minor error.
The Penguins also have Pierre-Olivier Joseph in the minors and the scouting report is pretty good. Rutherford said that Joseph looks "NHL ready" on 105.9 the X during his "Jim Rutherford show" and I've heard other rave reviews as well. This would be a huge x-factor, because Joseph has the pedigree, being a former second-round pick, known for his skill and skating ability. I'm hoping Joseph gets a real shot at making the big club this preseason, and if he's ready, being on an entry-level contract, that would be what I call a "win-win".
Outside of that, the Penguins brought in Mike Matheson from the Florida Panthers. Why? I don't know. Is he better than Johnson? Sure, but that's a pretty low bar to clear. Matheson is massively overpaid at 4.8 million. It's one thing to get rid of bad contracts, but adding other bad contracts makes this kind of counter-productive. You don't need to pay a bottom-pair dman almost $5 million. Even if Matheson is a small upgrade of Schultz-Johnson, it's not enough to justify that contract.
We already know that Rutherford traded his first-round pick and a bunch of people you've never heard of to Toronto for Kasperi Kapanen, who was originally part of Rutherford's trade to acquire Phil Kessel. To make this interesting, Evan Rodrigues was part of the trade to get Kapanen back, and then Rutherford re-signed Rodriguesto a $700 k contract during free-agency. Rutheford must have been watching inception recently.
I'm not sold on Kapanen being a top-six winger on a consistent basis. But looking at the roster, he's going to have to be. Anything less than 20 goals and 50 points is going to look bad. Rodrigues is what he is, a 4th-line player with speed. I guess the plan is to play him on the third-line? Along with other other free-agent signee Matt Jankowski, who is a "defensive specialist". * gasp* Rodrigues and Jankowski combined for 11 goals in over 90 games last year. If it looks like a 4th liner and sounds like a 4th liner, it's a 4th liner. Add in Colton Sceviour at $1.2 million, who was also apart of the Hornqvist trade, and you got yourself a 4th line trifecta.
Problem is the Penguins need third liners. They re-signed Jared McCann, and ok he fits the bill. That's one. Brandon Tanev? 4th liner, and an expensive 4th-liner at that. This is starting to look a lot like 2014.
Quality vs Quantity
Rutherford's biggest issue right now is quality vs quantity. The local media, who applauds every shit Rutherford takes, said he deserved praise for admitting his mistakes and correcting them. Uh I guess? Or you know, he could have listened to the entire hockey world and not signed Johnson to a 5-year deal, now the Penguins are going to be paying Johnson in a buyout scenario longer than they'll be paying Sidney Crosby. He's eating $1.2 million for Johnson's buyout, and another $2 million for dumping Nick Bjugstad's carcass on the Minnesota Wild. That's $3.2 million. You know who just signed for around that same kind of money? Craig Smith, former Nashville Predator, now Boston Bruin. Smith is an objectively good player, with a high-motor, known for scoring goals and generating offense. He's an analytical darling and his highlights match the charts. The Pens could have signed Smith, which would have upgraded both their top-nine by having Smith either play on the third-line with McCann, or perhaps even with Malkin or Crosby.
Jesper Fast signed with Carolina for $2 million. Another solid winger that a lot of Pens Twitter were keen on. Fast is better than any player not named McCann currently slated in the Pens bottom-six. There are still some other free-agents that would be upgrades over what they have now as well, including Erik Haula and Mikael Granlund. These would be better players and would add better value. Instead, Rutherford went with quantity. He signed Sam Lafferty, Rodrigues, Jankowski, and brought in Sceviour. None of these guys are "bad" but they are 4th liners and apparently he's asking two of them to play with McCann to make a 3rd line. Yikes. The big reason why the Penguins were so hard to play against in 2007-2009 and 2016-2018 is because they had three full lines able to score. Right now they're asking a 33-year old Sidney Crosby and a 34-year old Evgeni Malkin to carry this team to the playoffs and beyond, and while they might be able to do that, it's certainly not a proven recipe for success.
Some are going to say that I'm nitpicking or being a greedy "fan" and that's not the point. The point is that in a salary cap situation and with aging superstars, every dollar counts. People love Tanev, but he's not worth $3.5 million. Matheson is better than Johnson but he's not even close to being worth $4.8 million. Rodrigues, Sceviour, and Jankowski combine to make $2.6 million. For that money you could have had Jesper Fast, who's superior to all. For the price of Tanev and Matheson you could have had a cheaper dman and Craig Smith. This is where you can tell Rutherford isn't listening to Sam Ventura and the rest of his analytical guys, who might be locked in a dungeon somewhere.
The saving grace could be 19-year old winger Samuel Poulin who has been dominating the minor leagues. A lot of people think he's ready to make an NHL push but there's no guarantee a rookie 19-year old is going to make any significant impact. If that doesn't happen, and the Pens go with the forwards that are under contract, the Pens have a good solid-six and a bottom-six that might score 25 combined goals all year. Instead of getting a quality impact player Rutherford added a bunch of meh.
Comments
Post a Comment