News: Jim Rutherford: Penguins offered "a lot" for Fleury, tried to acquire him in October

[Empoleon8771]

The team is getting worse because your core is getting old and you've spent countless years trying to sustain it. Very little coming in by way of draft and development.

Rutherford's trades don't stand out as gigantic losses. They bring in players of moderate value, but Pittsburgh's inconsistency ultimately puts a timeline on how long these acquisitions have before they fall out of favor.

His biggest mistakes haven't stood out yet because the team is still moderately competitive. But giving term to support players isn't going to look particularly attractive when there aren't elite level players to push the offense.

JR spent countless assets trying to sustain it because he kept making bad trades and had to pay a ton of assets to fix his mistakes.

Here is his trade history with the Brassard deal:

-1st and Sundqvist for Reaves and a 2nd
-A 3rd and Wilson for Sheahan and a 5th
-Reaves, Cole, Gustavsson and a 1st for Brassard
-Sheahan, Brassard, a 2nd and some late picks (think it was like 2 4ths and a 5th or something like that) for McCann and Bjugstad
-Bjugstad at 50% for a conditional 7th

He turned Gustavsson, Cole, Sundqvist, Wilson, 2 1sts, a 3rd and some late picks for a season of terrible play from Brassard, a season and a half of mediocre play from Sheahan, like 20 games of good play from Bjugstad (and a season of $2 million in dead cap) and McCann. His trades don't stand out as "mistakes" because the cumulative results are him pissing away assets after assets to fix his mistakes.

Is that all his fault? No. It's not his fault that Brassard pouted about being a 3C and played like absolute garbage because of it. It's not his fault that Bjugstad's back gave out after he was pretty good for the Penguins in 2019. But a GM is judged on results, and his results have consistently been "trades go bad and then JR has to pay more assets to fix them".

 

[belair]

JR spent countless assets trying to sustain it because he kept making bad trades and had to pay a ton of assets to fix his mistakes.

Here is his trade history with the Brassard deal:

-1st and Sundqvist for Reaves and a 2nd
-A 3rd and Wilson for Sheahan and a 5th
-Reaves, Cole, Gustavsson and a 1st for Brassard
-Sheahan, Brassard, a 2nd and some late picks (think it was like 2 4ths and a 5th or something like that) for McCann and Bjugstad
-Bjugstad at 50% for a conditional 7th

He turned Gustavsson, Cole, Sundqvist, Wilson, 2 1sts, a 3rd and some late picks for a season of terrible play from Brassard, a season and a half of mediocre play from Sheahan, like 20 games of good play from Bjugstad (and a season of $2 million in dead cap) and McCann. His trades don't stand out as "mistakes" because the cumulative results are him pissing away assets after assets to fix his mistakes.

Is that all his fault? No. It's not his fault that Brassard pouted about being a 3C and played like absolute garbage because of it. It's not his fault that Bjugstad's back gave out after he was pretty good for the Penguins in 2019. But a GM is judged on results, and his results have consistently been "trades go bad and then JR has to pay more assets to fix them".

That's generally what GMs do when teams underperform. Like I said, these players are all short-term fixes. They address an immediate need and when the team falls short, they're the players who immediately fall out of favor. It's why he had no attachment to any of them.

 

[Empoleon8771]

That's generally what GMs do when teams underperform. Like I said, these players are all short-term fixes. They address an immediate need and when the team falls short, they're the players who immediately fall out of favor. It's why he had no attachment to any of them.

This isn't about "falling out of favor", it's a bunch of guys that JR paid a ton for just being flat out busts here.

You'd have a point if this was something like Kahun, who was pretty good for the Penguins but was still dealt. Brassard was ghastly bad for the Penguins. Galchenyuk was horrible for the Penguins. Bjugstad was only healthy for 20 games and he was terrible after that. JR has consistently made trades that result in the Penguins getting bad players, and then he pays more to correct those trades. It has happened a ton.

 

[66-30-33]

Dude started doing drugs once he traded a butt load for Ryan f***ing Reaves

Tom Wilson changed the guy lol. I am sure he still has nightmares of Wilson and wakes up every night in his own pool of sweat.

 

[CrosbyMalkin]

Is it wrong to suggest Rutherford should have had more in-house intel on Matt Murray vs Marc-Andre Fleury on the eve of expansion? Of course there's the massive age difference but aside from that, window of contention, Fleury did carry a lot of the championship winning work load on that 2017 cup win.

Murray won 15 of the Cup games in 2016 and won the Conference Finals and Cup Finals in 2017. Keeping the way higher priced and much older backup would of been completely crazy at that time. Murray was the clear number 1 and had the much better stats in both of those seasons. I can't picture any GM in the league trading a goalie after winning two Cups in his rookie year.

Fleury was a terrible playoff performer for many years after that 2009 Cup. Glad Fleury finished with a good playoff ending but it wasn't a close choice unless you had a crystal ball you make that decision 100 out of 100 times.

 

[Lindberg Cheese]

JR spent countless assets trying to sustain it because he kept making bad trades and had to pay a ton of assets to fix his mistakes.

Here is his trade history with the Brassard deal:

-1st and Sundqvist for Reaves and a 2nd
-A 3rd and Wilson for Sheahan and a 5th
-Reaves, Cole, Gustavsson and a 1st for Brassard
-Sheahan, Brassard, a 2nd and some late picks (think it was like 2 4ths and a 5th or something like that) for McCann and Bjugstad
-Bjugstad at 50% for a conditional 7th

He turned Gustavsson, Cole, Sundqvist, Wilson, 2 1sts, a 3rd and some late picks for a season of terrible play from Brassard, a season and a half of mediocre play from Sheahan, like 20 games of good play from Bjugstad (and a season of $2 million in dead cap) and McCann. His trades don't stand out as "mistakes" because the cumulative results are him pissing away assets after assets to fix his mistakes.

Is that all his fault? No. It's not his fault that Brassard pouted about being a 3C and played like absolute garbage because of it. It's not his fault that Bjugstad's back gave out after he was pretty good for the Penguins in 2019. But a GM is judged on results, and his results have consistently been "trades go bad and then JR has to pay more assets to fix them".

This history reminds me of 2006 housing market indicators

 

[CrosbyMalkin]

JR spent countless assets trying to sustain it because he kept making bad trades and had to pay a ton of assets to fix his mistakes.

Here is his trade history with the Brassard deal:

-1st and Sundqvist for Reaves and a 2nd
-A 3rd and Wilson for Sheahan and a 5th
-Reaves, Cole, Gustavsson and a 1st for Brassard
-Sheahan, Brassard, a 2nd and some late picks (think it was like 2 4ths and a 5th or something like that) for McCann and Bjugstad
-Bjugstad at 50% for a conditional 7th

He turned Gustavsson, Cole, Sundqvist, Wilson, 2 1sts, a 3rd and some late picks for a season of terrible play from Brassard, a season and a half of mediocre play from Sheahan, like 20 games of good play from Bjugstad (and a season of $2 million in dead cap) and McCann. His trades don't stand out as "mistakes" because the cumulative results are him pissing away assets after assets to fix his mistakes.

Is that all his fault? No. It's not his fault that Brassard pouted about being a 3C and played like absolute garbage because of it. It's not his fault that Bjugstad's back gave out after he was pretty good for the Penguins in 2019. But a GM is judged on results, and his results have consistently been "trades go bad and then JR has to pay more assets to fix them".

How many of those assets turned out as good NHL players? Cole was a UFA rental who was not going to be signed and was hated by the coach. Brassard and Sheahan got traded when they were becoming ufas that summer. GM's give up tons of high picks and prospects for rentals all the time or players without much term. You can look at every GM and find assets being lost given up for players that don't work out.

Like I said since the 2019 trade of Pettersson for Sprong Rutherford has had many more trade hits than misses. With all those picks and prospects you say he gave up let's put them up against these additions and see what list has the better players.

Pettersson, Marino, POJ, Matheson, Ceci, Lee, and Maniscalco on defense. McCann, Tanev, Zucker, Kapanen, and ZAR added to the top 9 and O'Connor and Zohorna added to the forward prospect pool.

Now show me all the great players that developed from those picks and prospects given up.

 

[Human]

This senile old man wouldn’t stop trading pieces. It’s like the eastern european joke when you start with a car and end up with an aspirin pill.

I also like MAF more now, since he’s the sole reason they got rid of Jack shit Johnson...

 

[Mrs Crosby's Dryer]

I didn't like the trade but it was:

Reaves+2nd for Sundqvist+1st. It dropped the Pens back from 31 to 51 and they took the same player they would have at 31. Sundqvist at the time had 4pts in 28 games for the Pens. They got a player they wanted.

Plenty of trades to question but this one always makes me think that people would prefer to think in memes rather than reality.

Although I really liked the trade myself, I couldn’t agree more with the rest of your post. This is spot absolutely on.

 

[Giskard]

At least we got rid of JJ out of this, thanks MAF!

 

[Windy River]

You conveniently left out that the Penguins are 1-7 in the playoffs in the last 2 years when JR has been making those trades.

Kinda important detail to leave out. It doesn't matter how each of your individual moves looks on paper (and your rankings are hella generous to put it bluntly) if your team is getting clearly worse with your moves.

Moves are far from the only factor that differentiate team success from year to year. There’s also:
- Development of players on the team
- Regression of players on the team
- Injuries
- Coaching
- Schedule
- Opponents (basically, every factor listed here applied to them, plus their moves, and resultant quality of their teams)
- ‘Luck’ - particularly in the playoff draw
- Rule changes, or application of rule changes
- Off-ice factors (pandemic, shuffling of divisions, personal things with players lives)

... to name a few.

Besides you are looking at a ridiculously small sample size of the last 2 years only, where making the playoffs is alot more than many other teams manage year after year.

 

[OCPenguin]

Former Penguins GM Jim Rutherford on his 'disappointing' departure, Marc-Andre Fleury, Phil Kessel and more

The fact that he only bought out JJ to try and clear money to get Fleury just makes me more and more confident JR was sniffing glue at the end of his tenure.

That is why I'm glad the old man is gone. He would have done something totally foolish.

 

[Oddbob]

What does he mean he offered a "lot" to get him? Vegas literally tried to give Fleury away back in October, with a 2nd as a sweetener and I believe retained as well, which means he could have taken him and added to the Pens draft plans.

 

[Man Bear Pig]

What does he mean he offered a "lot" to get him? Vegas literally tried to give Fleury away back in October, with a 2nd as a sweetener and I believe retained as well, which means he could have taken him and added to the Pens draft plans.

I'm guessing multiple picks and some contracts heading back to Vegas. I doubt they wanted to take much salary in return.

 

[Jerkbait]

Looks like almost all his moves have been dead on since the middle of the 2019 season with the Pettersson for Sprong deal. So don't think his end of his tenure was bad at all.

Moves since that deal:

Pettersson for Sprong +++
McCann and Bjugstad for rentals Brassard and Sheahan 2nd and 4th +
Signing Tanev +++
Trading a 6th for Marino +++++
Trading Kessel for POJ ++++
Trading for Zucker +
Trading for Kapanen +
Matheson for Hornqvist + that is my opinion but I do believe Matheson helps this team much more than Hornqvist would and with a lower cap hit and 9 years younger.
Signing Ceci for $1.25 million +++++
Rodriguez signed for minimum +
Jankowski signed for minimum =

Rutherford's moves is what has kept this team competitive despite the aging core. Why people feel the need to tear the man down after he is gone is beyond me. He is a sure Hall of Famer. The magic he did to turn this team around into back to back Cups is the best GM work I have ever witnessed. I believe his moves since that Pettersson trade have put the team in that same contention as that 2016 group. If this team is healthy come playoffs they have as good as shot as anyone to win the Cup. I would feel better if Rutherford was here because I know he would add another top 6 piece to go for the Cup. I hope Hextall doesn't waste our cores best shot with all 3 playing great now. The future is now. You go all in because you aren't getting a core like this again for decades. Ask the Leafs or Flyers how easy it is to build a Cup champion.

Some good there and some awful..m zucker has largely been a bust , in fact he has largely been the worst pens forward this season.
Losing Hornqvist was a mistake.
Kessler trade was bad even tho he was limited that was BAD.
Could have got more for Murray if he held out.

 

[Unsustainable]

Thanks for the 2 Cups, JR, but you probably should have retired after the 2018 season.

we told ya what JR would do

 

[3ladesof5teel]

Some good there and some awful..m zucker has largely been a bust , in fact he has largely been the worst pens forward this season.
Losing Hornqvist was a mistake.
Kessler trade was bad even tho he was limited that was BAD.
Could have got more for Murray if he held out.

This is pretty laughable coming off a small sample size and zucker being injured. He's was down just like Malkin was down at the start of the season and so many wanted to write him off.

This coming from someone who wasn't even big on the bring zucker train in last year.

Would love to have Zucker back and healthy now.

 

[JackFr]

Is it wrong to suggest Rutherford should have had more in-house intel on Matt Murray vs Marc-Andre Fleury on the eve of expansion? Of course there's the massive age difference but aside from that, window of contention, Fleury did carry a lot of the championship winning work load on that 2017 cup win.

No, Murray was undoubtedly the way to go at the expansion draft. Was coming off an awesome season, was excellent in both Cup runs, was much younger and much cheaper.

Murray's insane fall from grace since then (and Fleury's 1.5 seasons of elite goaltending mixed in with some less than elite goaltending) were unforseeable at that point. Goalies gonna goalie.

 

[Extra Texture]

Thank god almighty Bill Foley loves MAF too. That would've been the ultimate knee-jerk, reactionary move to a team having a slow start. Nevermind how much he would've paid, the cap ramifications alone would've been hard to swallow. I'm sure JR was counting on alot of media back up for a "feel good" move like that to gloss over his more recent bad decision making.

Look at Jarry now, ffs. Leave the first few games of the season out and he has ranged from "pretty good" to "lights f***ing out". It would've screwed our cap, and that's before even getting into the price he was willing to pay. The idea that we could've given up POJ+ (and probably dumped Jarry afterward for pennies on the dollar) in this hare brained scheme makes me slightly ill.

I'm always grateful for what Rutherford did here, but thank god the old man moved on. The fact that Hextall's track record shows he isn't one to throw away futures and assets like candy gives me alot of comfort right now.

edit: I just realized he's saying he chased him in October. That's well before Jarry's/the team's rocky start to this season.

That's not even a knee jerk move. That's just a plain old jerk move

Is it wrong to suggest Rutherford should have had more in-house intel on Matt Murray vs Marc-Andre Fleury on the eve of expansion? Of course there's the massive age difference but aside from that, window of contention, Fleury did carry a lot of the championship winning work load on that 2017 cup win.

Yes he did. And then as soon as the going got really tough in the conference finals, MAF started to crap the bed and Murray was called upon to come in and lock things down during the most high profile games (turning around the conference finals against Ottawa and the SCF against the Preds). Murray was markedly better in both playoff runs, even allowing for a smaller MAF sample size in 2016.

I just dont know how the narrative has arisen since Murray has hit the skids in Ottawa. I say narrative because I've seen it in a few places now among other posters: "The Pens were wrong to get rid of MAF over Murray, even old man Rutherford wanted to get him back." In 2017 Murray was cheaper, was putting up better numbers, and finally did the thing that MAF struggled with for years; staying ice cold in the postseason clutch. After years of MAF's playoff follies and blooper reels, Matt Murray was like night and day.

I feel awful for the kid now. But keeping the better, younger, cheaper, G with ice water in his veins was an almighty no-brainer during the Vegas draft.

 

[OCPenguin]

JR spent countless assets trying to sustain it because he kept making bad trades and had to pay a ton of assets to fix his mistakes.

Here is his trade history with the Brassard deal:

-1st and Sundqvist for Reaves and a 2nd
-A 3rd and Wilson for Sheahan and a 5th
-Reaves, Cole, Gustavsson and a 1st for Brassard
-Sheahan, Brassard, a 2nd and some late picks (think it was like 2 4ths and a 5th or something like that) for McCann and Bjugstad
-Bjugstad at 50% for a conditional 7th

He turned Gustavsson, Cole, Sundqvist, Wilson, 2 1sts, a 3rd and some late picks for a season of terrible play from Brassard, a season and a half of mediocre play from Sheahan, like 20 games of good play from Bjugstad (and a season of $2 million in dead cap) and McCann. His trades don't stand out as "mistakes" because the cumulative results are him pissing away assets after assets to fix his mistakes.

Is that all his fault? No. It's not his fault that Brassard pouted about being a 3C and played like absolute garbage because of it. It's not his fault that Bjugstad's back gave out after he was pretty good for the Penguins in 2019. But a GM is judged on results, and his results have consistently been "trades go bad and then JR has to pay more assets to fix them".

Most of his decisions as GM of the Pens were outright mistakes. Don't try to say otherwise.

 

[OCPenguin]

Some good there and some awful..m zucker has largely been a bust , in fact he has largely been the worst pens forward this season.
Losing Hornqvist was a mistake.
Kessler trade was bad even tho he was limited that was BAD.
Could have got more for Murray if he held out.

Losing Horny was not a mistake. That extension JR signed him to was a horrid one for the Pens when you include his fragility/injury issues. The mistake was getting Matheson back and adding Scevior to the pot. That was the mistake.

Kessel trade wasn't bad. He needed to go and he has done what in Phoenix to justify it was a mistake?

He couldn't have gotten more for Murray. Most people with a brain know this.

 

[OCPenguin]

I didn't like the trade but it was:

Reaves+2nd for Sundqvist+1st. It dropped the Pens back from 31 to 51 and they took the same player they would have at 31. Sundqvist at the time had 4pts in 28 games for the Pens. They got a player they wanted.

Plenty of trades to question but this one always makes me think that people would prefer to think in memes rather than reality.

And then he trades Reaves in that failed Brassard deal totally forgetting the reason why he got him in the first place. IThe t was a terrible deal so don't try to give him a pass on this.

 

[Mick Jagr]

 

[Jerkbait]

This is pretty laughable coming off a small sample size and zucker being injured. He's was down just like Malkin was down at the start of the season and so many wanted to write him off.

This coming from someone who wasn't even big on the bring zucker train in last year.

Would love to have Zucker back and healthy now.

We saw zucker play eith both sid and geno and struggled. I would not say it was a sample sample size. This goes right back to the Montreal series last year. Zuflcker for sure has been worst bang for the buck of the pens forwards. Players like bleuger tanev and ZAR have performed much better and his advanced stats are horrible.

 

[Jerkbait]

Hornqvist has been incredible this year . This is the single biggest issue behind the pens powerplay struggling. Current management has even pointed out key areas that Hornqvist excelled at. Big loss, so big they are shopping for a replacement type player.
Kessel was essentially Kessel for POJ who still isn't ready for the NHL. The pens have not been able to replace Kessel on the PP or third line threat.
Zucker has struggled mightily. Not sure what your point is suppose to be but it's not right...