This is not correct, you are ignoring a ton of players that Rutherford added. Rutherford also added Hagelin, Bonino, Schultz, Cole, Sheary, Cullen, Lovejoy (although a very questionable trade) and Hainsey (feel obligated to include him since he played 21 minutes a night in 2017) that had big impacts on at least 1 of the cup runs. He added an elite RW, 2 top-6 wingers (Hornqvist and Sheary), 3+ top-4 defenseman (Cole, Schultz and Daley are definite ones, Hainsey is debatable), 2 middle-6 guys who put up elite playoff runs (Hagelin and Bonino)...you're really underrating the kind of impact he had. That also doesn't touch on that it's probably unfair to not give him any credit for guys like Rust, Dumoulin, Guentzel and Murray, they were Shero draft picks but Rutherford still gave them the opportunity to thrive here. It's like not giving Shero much credit for the 2009 cup win because Crosby, Fleury and Malkin were Craig Patrick draft picks.
We're talking about now, not 2015 and not in the past. That's why Bowman isn't being talked about as one of the best GMs in hockey. It's why Chiarelli is considered one of the worst GMs in hockey. You're clinging to bad stuff with Rutherford and ignoring the good stuff he has accomplished recently. Who cares what he did in Carolina? That's not nearly as relevant as what he has done in the last couple of years with the Penguins. A GM who builds from the ground up isn't better than a GM who takes a struggling team into a cup contender just because they built their team from the ground. You seem to be insisting that's the case. Rutherford's strong suit is trading and reworking a team with good pieces, it's not building a team. That doesn't make him a worse GM than a guy who builds up a team, but can't take a good team to a cup winner.
The Jets have made the playoffs twice in the last 11 seasons and most of his top pieces came from him being the GM of a garbage team. Yeah, it's really dumb that he's probably going to win #3 here. He's basically going to win #3 because of transactions he made nearly a decade ago (Byfuglien and Wheeler being the big ones) and the fact that his team sucked for a lot of the last 10 years. You can also look at it from the POV of him not winning anything yet, but actually looking at how the Jets became good further emphasizes it.