Tim Benz: Jim Rutherford is somehow both totally correct, and completely wrong - TribLIVE

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I didn’t think anything could make me more frustrated than watching the 5th-seeded Penguins lose to the 24th-seeded Montreal Canadiens in the qualifying round of the 2020 NHL season.

Until I listened to Jim Rutherford talk about it.

On Tuesday, the Penguins general manager gave a frank assessment of how his team dissolved into a puddle in the Toronto hub.

“Montreal played with more determination and wanted it more,” Rutherford said. “And we went the other way. That’s where it unraveled. That is very puzzling when you get to the most critical time of a series or of a season that a team can’t find that determination.”

Amen.

Rutherford went on to …

• admit changes he made last year weren’t enough and more “need to be made.”

• wonder aloud if his team had the willingness to stay in the playoff bubble.

• bury defenseman Justin Schultz’s play during the Canadiens series, claiming “he had more to give.”

• admonish the failure of the power play.

• cite essential changes such as coming up with “different ideas” and a “different approach.” He also made a call for more “determined players.”

• repeatedly forecast the need to get younger.

• express concern that the players emotionally “fizzled” in the toughest moments of Games 3 and 4 under this coaching staff. He expressed dismay that it couldn’t conjure up the same kind of “drive and determination” that the Canadiens had.

And Rutherford pointedly refused to use the bubble environment or the restart from the coronavirus shutdown as an excuse.

“If it only happened this year, we’d say it’s an oddity or this is a team that couldn’t adjust to playing in August. You can’t make those excuses when it happens two years in a row,” Rutherford said, referring to last year’s first-round sweep at the hands of the New York Islanders.

All of that is right. All of it.

The problem is I don’t see these current Penguins heeding the message. And I don’t see Rutherford doing anything substantive enough to fix the problems.

Because for as spot on as his criticisms were, Rutherford also …

• only used that rebuke of Schultz as a way to defend Jack Johnson’s poor play.

• questioned the team’s leadership but refused to lay any of it explicitly at the feet of captain Sidney Crosby or head coach Mike Sullivan.

• couched his decree about getting younger by saying they’d have to do it “cautiously” and they could “transition on the fly” and “still be a contending team.”

• insisted the window for contending is still open.

Nah. Sorry, GMJR. Evgeni Kuznetsov slammed that window shut the minute he stopped flapping his bird wings at the end of Game 6 of the 2018 Eastern Conference semifinals.

If the Penguins come back with the same coach, general manager and same three star players, everything else is window dressing.

Because as long as Letang, Malkin and Crosby are here, Letang, Malkin and Crosby are going to play how they want to play. With the same on-ice partners that they want. And all three of them doing what they want on the power play, too.

For a while, that worked out great.

Until it didn’t. So Sullivan got hired.

When he first got here, Sullivan didn’t allow that. He coached those guys — and Phil Kessel — like he coached everybody else.

And that worked out great, as well.

Until it didn’t. As seen in each of the past two years. And as demonstrated in a paltry goal total of 28 in their past 14 playoff games. Along with nine losses in their past 10 playoff contests.

The funny thing is, Rutherford is ignoring his own money quote.

“When we have one of our top players (injured), whether it’s (Crosby) or whether it’s (Malkin), we play the game a different way. We play a team game and play it more the right way. That’s not saying anything about how they play. But we realize that when one of those top players comes out of the lineup, we don’t have the luxury of scoring a goal whenever we really need to. We don’t have those guys to break the game open. We have to tighten it down,” Rutherford said.

Exactly, Jim. Seeing as how they won a Stanley Cup without Letang in the lineup in 2017, you could argue he could be part of that equation, too.

But when asked specifically if trading Malkin or Letang was on the table, Rutherford said, “I plan to move forward with the core. These are good players. They still have good hockey left in them.

“I will not be actively trying to trade our core players.”

Quite the divergent messages then, eh?

Rutherford gives a great rah-rah speech in the face of trauma. He did on Tuesday. He did after the Islanders series last year. He did in November 2018 when the team got off to a sluggish start. He did it in December 2015 under the same circumstances.

I’m always intrigued listening to these pep talks. I just don’t want to hear another one at the end of next year’s first round again.

But if Rutherford’s moves are as minimal as I fear, that’s exactly what we are going to get.

Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at tbenz@triblive.com or via Twitter. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.

Categories: Penguins/NHL | Sports | Breakfast With Benz