Jim Rutherford was hired by the Penguins as general manager last summer. — GETTY
BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC
HARRISBURG — Roundup of a lot of randomness from a lot of time around our teams …
• Sometimes in this business, you hear whispers, rumor, second-hand or third-hand word, and it’s difficult to discern what’s worth putting out to the public and what isn’t.
Not so with the following information I received yesterday afternoon: The Penguins absolutely, positively, unequivocally have no plan to remove Jim Rutherford and/or Mike Johnston, regardless of how the season ends.
This comes straight from the top. No middleman. No room for misinterpretation.
What’s more, the team has no expectation that Rutherford, 66, will resign or retire.
The broader stance, again straight from the top, is that the 2014-15 team has been besieged by key injuries, particularly on defense — where three of the top four players were lost in Kris Letang, Christian Ehrhoff and Olli Maatta — and that this facet has been more responsible for the team’s flat finish. The name cited most often, actually, is that of Maatta. Not because he’s seen as more important than Letang but because he was lost so early and forced Johnston to alter his breakouts and puck-support systems to something that didn’t require above-average mobile defensemen.
The stance on Rutherford is that most of his many trades were good, and that’s pretty much indisputable, I’d say. He took his biggest gamble right away in getting Patric Hornqvist for James Neal, and Hornqvist has been exemplary in every way even as the Predators have been happy with Neal. He invested a first-round pick in now-struggling David Perron, but the Penguins see him as a potential 30-goal scorer once he gets back to shooting pucks without first needing to read ‘War and Peace.’ Trades for Daniel Winnik, Nick Spaling and the like haven’t looked as attractive as they might, the stance goes, had they not been forced to play top-six roles due to injury. Pluggers should plug. Maxim Lapierre was added because he was expected to be a better playoff performer than Marcel Goc, which he has been by a mile. Acquiring Ian Cole for Robert Bortuzzo has been an outright heist. And even the one trade that doesn’t look good from a hockey standpoint, Ben Lovejoy for Simon Despres, is viewed without regret for reasons beyond hockey pertaining to both men.
One area where I strongly differ from the front office — vociferously, actually — is that they feel Rutherford wasn’t to blame for the late-season cap fiasco, as it involved what they feel was an extraordinary, worst-case circumstance in Letang and Ehrhoff both going down. It says here that covering for worst-case scenarios is part of the job.
I don’t have nearly as clear a view about the stance on Johnston, other than that he’s safe, so I won’t speculate as to why that sentiment exists.
Short version: No blowup is on the horizon. Not this summer.
See the Game 4 column for more about what to expect instead.
• The man held responsible for the hole dug, especially in the organization as related to depth and youth, very much remains Ray Shero. That’s as it should be.
• Know that plans for 2015-16 will include giving Taylor Chorney a real chance. He has impressed not only Johnston, who fairly glows about him, but also his teammates.
“The guy,” Marc-Andre Fleury told me, “is just everywhere, so smart, quick, good with the puck.”
• Olli Maatta is living and dying with the Penguins shift to shift, from high overhead. It’s no fun seeing him up in the press box, for obvious reasons, but it’s been telling about his passion and team spirit.
• What in the world would have compelled NBC color commentator Pierre McGuire, during Game 1 at the Garden and in between the benches, to raise his right arm to call attention to a referee while Steve Downie was crosschecking one of the Rangers in front of him?
It requires reading body language, but McGuire looked disgusted by what he was witnessing and his motion was suggesting to the ref something like, ‘Hey, are you seeing this?’
The network, of course, didn’t air this. But it could be seen on the in-house feed at the Garden, which is available to media covering the event.
If the Penguins can get a copy of this footage to corroborate, they’d have every grounds to ask NBC to remove McGuire from future broadcasts. It’s not about overt favoritism. That happens. It’s about interfering with the actual game — in any way — toward assisting one team over another.
I’ll put out a request right here, in fact: If anyone has access to this footage, please contact this site, and I’ll publish it in full context for everyone to see.
A brief snow squall hit PNC Park during the Pirates’ game against the Cubs on Wednesday. — GETTY
• When Arquimedes Caminero pitched for the Pirates in that brief snow squall Wednesday at PNC Park, a new level of difficulty for hitting a baseball might have been born, as he achieved 101 mph on the gun while snow-sleet blinded every batter he faced.
But something else might have been born, too.
“Snowman!” Caminero exclaimed my way yesterday after the win over the Cubs.
When I sought clarification, the big man explained that when his inning was done, Vance Worley playfully dubbed him “The Snowman” and that others in the clubhouse have caught on.
That’s tremendous, right?
“I kind of like it,” he answered with a grin. “You know, you want to be cool out there.”
And snow is … yeah.
“Yeah.”
• If you were watching at the yard or even on TV and wondered what Caminero was using for swing-and-miss pitches the past couple nights, know that he’s got two — a split-change and a cutter — which look basically the same coming out of his hand but take completely different routes.
He leaned on the splitty Wednesday, the cutter yesterday, mixing in the heat presumably to amuse himself.
• Two ridiculous minutes with Andrew Lambo, including stuff on his hitting the other way with authority yesterday, his confidence and his defending Crosby from the critics:
Not everyone picks up on hitting to the opposite field, by the way, at least not until it’s too late. Lambo has been OK going oppo in the minors, but he’s needed to improve significantly in the majors.
I asked McCutchen about that: “You can get away with a lot in the minors, even up to the high minors. But once you get up here, with how you get pitched, you’ve got no choice. What he did today is what he’s got to do, what anybody’s got to do.”
Asked Hurdle, too: “Andrew knows now that he’s got to do that with some pitches. And he is. It’s a great sign from him, and it’s great to see something to help his confidence a little.”
• Apologies in advance if this is getting repetitive, but this is the best clubhouse I’ve been around in a decade of covering the Pirates. And I’m saying that in the sports sense, not whether or not they’re swell guys or give good interviews. I’m talking about their tightness.
At some point this summer, that will be worth a full column with descriptive material.
• It’s instructive that Le’Veon Bell last night told NFL Network during a studio visit that his knee is now “close to 100 percent.” He added: “I’m probably about 85-90 percent, been able to run on it a little bit. So I’m getting back to working out a little.”
Just a reminder: Bell was expected by some to have at least a small chance to play that very weekend in the playoff game against the Ravens. And if not then, almost certainly the following week. Bell himself told reporters, including me in some questioning away from the pack, that he was positive he’d be ready in the event of a win.
But here were are, four months later, and it still isn’t fully healthy.
Maybe it’s just as well the Steelers didn’t advance.
• Following a Bell item with one about ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. might be in obvious bad taste, given their little social media flare-up this past fall, but hey: As close as anyone gets to hard, verifiable draft news is by following those who invest 362 days of the year into the three that encompass the draft, so it’s telling that in the live mock draft last night between Kiper and Todd McShay — one taking even-numbered selections, the other taking odd — Kiper chose UConn corner Byron Jones with the Steelers’ No. 22 pick.
That’s mostly notable because, in previous mocks, Kiper had the Steelers taking another corner, Wake Forest’s Kevin Johnson, but this time he dropped Johnson and had the Ravens taking him at No. 26.
This sort of thing tends to happen only when new information about teams’ preference becomes known. And that makes sense, if you think about it, considering neither Jones nor Johnson are participating in any games or combines these days to rise or fall.
As long as it’s a corner.
• Good dude: Rutherford.
No, I’m not going to stir all this up anew. This is mostly about the GM himself.
TSN’s Bob McKenzie, the continent’s unquestioned finest hockey reporter, was speaking on Canadian television this week after the much-discussed incident, and he called Rutherford “a man I’ve known for a very long time and am fortunate to call a friend” as well as “one of the best men I know.”
Rutherford did something dumb. I was there. I saw it. I heard it. What’s more, he initiated it. The correct course of action for the GM would have been to request, either through media relations or with the reporter directly, an audience to air out grievances. Like a private Festivus, if you will. I’ve had such requests more times than I can count, and almost always, they resulted in at least an understanding of the other side’s position, if not an appreciation.
That didn’t happen here. Rutherford was in the heat of a devastating loss, in a packed elevator, and he was right there against someone he’d have been better off not seeing in that particular setting and mood. And so, after exiting that elevator and taking a few steps, he turned and said something nasty. It wasn’t loud. He wasn’t shouting. In fact, it was barely audible, even to the only other person nearby at this stage, that being me.
Rutherford blew it. He did.
But it happens.
It happens all the time in covering sports, especially at the major-league level, where so much is on the line, so much time and energy invested.
It’s up to any media outlet to cover stuff like this as they please. At this site, the policy will be what it’s always been for me, and that’s this: I cover the news. And if I report to to you every time someone’s mad at me — which, again, happens all the time — then you begin to doubt whether or not I can continue covering a certain individual or team. To me, that tradeoff isn’t worth it. I’d rather try harder to reconnect relations or, if need be, continue covering without the cooperation of the individual at hand. I’ve done that, too. Many, many times. I’ve no doubt in my mind, for example, that about half the front office of the local baseball team still despises me for the ‘Hoka Hey’ reporting a few years back. It doesn’t change a thing. I still communicate with them, still do my job, and they do likewise.
An even bigger example was the single biggest exclusive of my career, that being when I learned that the Penguins had secretly voted Mario Lemieux a $10 million raise during their bankruptcy period, potentially at the cost of paying back small-time creditors. (They eventually paid back every penny.)
Lemieux saw me on the morning that blared across the top of the Post-Gazette’s front page. I was sitting with Herb Brooks in his office at the Civic Arena. Lemieux paused by the doorway, made eye contact and said: “Who was your source? Because I’m going to have to kill him.”
Lemieux could have hated my guts for all time. He didn’t. He cracked that joke, winked and kept walking. We continue to have a great mutual trust to this day. He knew I had a job to do, and I did it.
Personal stuff in either direction doesn’t — or shouldn’t — affect any praise or criticism a journalist makes. That’s why it’s personal and not professional.
Rutherford went personal. That stunk.
But it’s also the case that he had a bad isolated moment with a reporter he felt has been out to get him and the Penguins for nearly a year. It wasn’t, as some have stated, about being sensitive to being criticized. Not from the team’s viewpoint. Rather, it’s about things being portrayed as facts that the team believes are not facts.
I’ve ripped the Penguins repeatedly over the past season, including the front office and medical stuff for their near-comical butchering of the mumps mess. In fact, I was the only writer in town to do so. The team didn’t welcome the criticism. They didn’t enjoy it. But they also didn’t complain at all, presumably because there was nothing factually incorrect.
The only reason I piped up this week — and long-time readers can attest I very rarely address anything related to local media — was that I didn’t like how Rutherford was being portrayed from an accuracy standpoint. I don’t know the man well at all, to be honest. We most certainly aren’t friends. But wrong is wrong.
Great insider. I'm pretty sure half the town hates Rossi. Interesting note on Pierre considering the hockey public think he has a love affair with the Penguins.
In addition. I'm happy GMJR blew up. That shows he is actually a person. We spent years of robot Bylsma and Shero and now seemingly robot Johnson. Someone has to have passion and a look other than deer in headlights.
Michelle
4-24-2015, 12:25 am
If it were anyone else but rossi I think we'd be reacting differently. Rossi has written headline after headline defacing the organization seemingly with very little facts, as Dejan pointed out. It comes of incredibly egotistical and very personal to certain players and personel. That's what I don't like it. I wonder if GMJR knows he's a pittsburgh legend for the "go sell ice cream" comeback. Dk got an answer? Haha!
WildcatRay
4-24-2015, 7:28 am
Don't forget that Regis is friends with Ray Shero. There could be a bit of bitterness for Shero being fired.
I would have to say Regis was out of line for raising his arm as he allegedly did. His job is to express his analyses and opinions of the game he is watching, not interact with and become a part of that game.
And, adding insult to injury, I do not recall Regis expressing the opinion that the refs should have called penalties on the Angels in Game 3.
Dan1283
4-24-2015, 12:15 am
I hate the Spaling trade and to me it has everything to do with his salary. This guy made $2.2 million this year and will make the same next year. And for what? That fact that he makes that kind of coin AND can't fill in adequately on the top six makes it even worse. They don't need to pay a "plugger" that kind of money, unless he brings a tool that most don't like speed, skill with the puck, leadership, an ability to move up to the top six, or size and grit. Spaling brings almost none of that and he certainly has had plenty of chances to show this team something more than what he's given them. He seems completely lost when he finds the puck on his stick. Just look around the playoffs at all the bottom six and second-line wingers making an impact and you'll see this guy is nothing more Marcel Goc playing the wing.
Rutherford should have never made this move. His point production looked good last year, but it's his job to know whether or not that would translate here.
I agree Spalling is a disappointment but wasn't he part of the Hornqvist trade? In that context, though I wish the penguins would have taken a better player, I understand the move as addressing some net-front presence needs and I can understand how scouts would think both players might fill that void. It turns out Spalling is just a 4th liner, but I agree with that logic of taking the upside chance that the pens get 2 top six players for 1. Furthermore, I don't know about the math of the contracts but when you subtract Neal's cap hit from the combined 2 players the pens got it really that lopsided? Seems like of all the trades, this is one of least controversial.
Stephen Dotts
4-24-2015, 2:21 am
From what I saw Neal is 5 more years at 5 million a year while spalling has 1 more year at 2.2 u and Hornqist is at 4.25 million per year for 3 more years. So in context of that trade, Spalling is a net 1.55 uptake if you consider Neal and Hornqist a wash when it comes to talent. With the pens making the phone call to initiate that trade, paying a bit above Spalling's worth for 1 more year is pretty good if the pens get what they want out the deal.
Dan1283
4-24-2015, 8:11 am
Steve, none of that is relevant. Unless there's information I don't have to, Spaling wasn't a required part of the deal. I don't care what his "net" salary is, someone better and cheaper would have cost even less. I don't care that he came with Hornquist. The two weren't tied together. He would've been better off getting a minimum-salary player, because he's given them minimum-salary production.
The wolf
4-24-2015, 4:19 pm
Dan you're spot on in my view. The extra-irritating thing about Spaling is that he threatened to go to arbitration for more money after the trade, the team met him halfway, and then this is what they got for it- a soft 4th liner who hasn't done anything meaningful since last calendar year. Zero goals in 30+ games now. I'd much rather take a chance on a WBS call up for his spot for however long the rest of this season lasts.
Incredible stuff. Frustrating as hell that Pierre did that. I mean, his constant lambasting of Penguins players over penalties, including saying that Downie should sit out the next game, has always reeked is impartial, but you're right, to actually interfere with the game...
Well that's discouraging. Horrible PP, worst division record in the division, not a single third period comeback all year, I don't see any tangible reasons for bringing this staff back. Ratings dropped 13% this year for Pens. I agree injuries have been crippling but even with that where has this team shown improvement besides Flower's outstanding year?
You're wrong about the third period comeback. They did it against Arizona on March 28. Down 1-0 in the third. They won. That's a third period comeback.
And this team was smoking hot early in the season when everyone was healthy.
Scaldis Noel
4-24-2015, 6:02 am
atlantig, Although I'm going to assume your info is accurate regarding a comeback vs Arizona since I don't recall the specifics, I believe that the official "third period comeback" stat is based on whether they were trailing after two periods.
alantig
4-24-2015, 8:36 am
I believe the stat, at least as I've seen it referenced, is always stated as "when trailing after two". Which is slightly different than a third period comeback - the trailing after two stat would include an OT win. (Although depending on how loosely you define "third period comeback", that could also include an OT win or a loss, if you consider a comeback complete when the score is tied. I don't. I'm taking comeback to mean "come from behind and win".)
And something that gets overlooked in the angst over that trailing after two stat, the Pens were had either the lowest or near the lowest (not sure how it finished up) number of games where they trailed going into the third.
WildcatRay
4-24-2015, 9:05 am
Two word: Extenuating circumstances.
Marc
4-24-2015, 10:55 am
If your argument contains the words "against Arizona"...
hugo
4-24-2015, 11:20 am
They didn't win a single game after trailing after two periods all season. They were the ONLY team in the league to accomplish that feat. If you want to hang on the the exact phrasing of what does and doesn't constitute a third period comeback please feel free to waste your time. Nothing like reading all those negatives and choosing to debate the semantics of the point.........
tfftroy
4-24-2015, 12:21 am
What can I say DK? Friday Insider is so awesome. It does seem to me that the last half of this season has been such a poor representation of what JR and MJ might be able to do, especially considering this team's record through December.
And your closing is perfect. Every word. Thank you.
1. My laugh out loud for the night: "without first needing to read ‘War and Peace.’ "
2. Good dude: Ollie Maatta. Love team spirit like that.
3. Good-er dude: Mario. Great story about you two.
As a former high school and college journalist (and not to sound analogous to a former high school football player who "knows the game"), I have a real appreciation for how you write and where it comes from. Being a columnist lets the writer share their opinion, but as you said, keep the personal stuff out.
Journalism principles are the same at all levels. I appreciate your words same as I would from someone at NYT. Thank you.
mkozak25
4-24-2015, 12:23 am
I can't believe they allowed him to post that article. I'm not in journalism, and I don't know the unspoken rules but when I read it it reeked of unprofessionalism. Guy has to have blocked half of pittsburgh on Twitter and just seems petty. I realize that columnists give opinions but it makes me appreciate DK's even though I may not always agree with them. At least I know he forms his opinions based off facts. And as long as that's the case I'd be willing to pay the small amount to be able to keep reading
Half of Pittsburgh is lucky. His twitter feed wreaks of a self-important hipster who thinks he's more clever than everyone else.
Dejan Kovacevic
4-24-2015, 2:58 am
Journalism's rules aren't unspoken. There are codes of conduct and ethics at every outlet.
jhuber855
4-24-2015, 6:35 am
Rossi has literally blocked every person that I have known who used to follow him on Twitter, simply because they commented in a way that he didn't like. You need some thick skin when you are putting your opinions out there- and he has none. He is just a spoiled, entitled , non- respected journalist- plain and simple
Mike
4-24-2015, 9:11 am
Chad! great seeing you in here, buddy
anyways, whatever he did worked from his perspective and will only fuel his fire to keep having awful pieces. he was on NHL Network the day after his article. just sickening that he had such a double standard - "im a writer, i write facts" in his article, yet in his own quote, he said "i write my opinion" to GMJR. I am even disappointed in myself for reading his pieces this long. he clearly has a vendetta against this current regime.
Happy to have made the change over to DK!
mk
4-24-2015, 11:05 am
I wasn't sickened by what Rossi wrote, because I didn't read it. If people don't like the guy, they should strongly consider not giving him the page views, and not following him on Twitter. I'm guessing his employers pay attention to those kinds of numbers.
Dan1283
4-24-2015, 12:28 am
I just want to expand on my previous point, if I may.
Too often in this town I hear the phrase "everyone liked/hated the deal at the time it was made" or "I didn't hear anyone complaining about the move a year ago." But it's all irrelevant. Most of us don't have scouts' eyes, or access to inside information shared amongst that circle. Everyone thought the Pirates overpaid for Russell Martin. But Huntington and his staff got that one right. We were wrong and it doesn't matter, he was right and that DOES matter. That's my point on Spaling. He looked like a good fit to us. But if he looked like a good fit to Rutherford...man, that's a pile of wasted money.
Thought I heard some in front office were against including Spaling because he was at peak numbers last year.
Would have taken Hornie straight up for Neal. And then asked Preds if they had a few more Hornies they might want to unload.
bml8wn
4-24-2015, 12:28 am
out of curiosity, roughly when did the downie/pierre happen during the game? it's always worth a look on the canadian broadcast to see if they caught/aired it.
That's it! There's more, but you catch the tail end and see him complaining all demonstratively. Nice work!
Groat2Maz2Strangeglove
4-24-2015, 11:25 am
I'm not looking to become a defender of Pierre McQuire:
. . . . . but I do a lot of public speaking and I intentionally talk a lot with my hands. It animates the words, and that animation comes through even over the phone or when someone isn't looking.
I see both of McQuire's hands coming up in unison and his head bobbing as if he is talking into his mike on this clip. He does not appear to be "yelling" as if to the refs, but reporting into his mike. At both glances the camera gives him, both hands are moving in unison and moving as one who is talking about or reporting something.
Maybe it happened before this clip, but I don't see a right hand pointing toward a supposed penalty———as a public speaker I visualize a person reporting on what is happening in front of him.
WithBBQSauce
4-24-2015, 12:29 am
Hey DK, next time you're in Harrisburg, you need to do a local meetup, lots of fans out here!
The only thing better than a great journalist, is an honest, great journalist. This is why your medium is and will continue to be successful. This subscription is the most justifiable money I've spent in a long time. Thanks for the insight, and more, the honesty behind it.
That being said, though the season isn't technically over,I can't wait to see what this pens roster looks like in September and what, if any buyouts actually go down. Unlike the Steelers, it seems to me that the Penguins are a little too loyal to buy anyone out.
one more thing... I hate that Ehrhoff had injury trouble. I love his game, and I think he'd have been a real nice piece of the team for a few years. But, considering the injury history this season alone, they just can't consider signing him, in my opinion.
Even if Ehrhoff had been healthy through the end of the regular season and into the playoffs, it is highly unlikely that he would have been re-signed. If he had played poorly, they wouldn't have wanted to re-sign him, and if he played extremely well, they wouldn't have wanted to invest the additional money in him for future years, with all of the young talent (and the cap space it saves) already in the system. Even if Scuderi is bought out, with everyone healthy, they have more than 6 NHL-caliber defensemen under contract for next year.
Mike
4-24-2015, 9:24 am
Chad, 100% agreed. DK is great and I'm mad it took this long for me to subscribe. Well worth the $$$.
I am very excited for this offseason, but cant see the pens buying out players. Though, i think GMJR is less loyal to Kuni/Scuderi than Shero was, I dont know if the culture of the organization will allow for these buyouts. Maybe find a buyer like the Coyotes did for Z.Michalek. Doubtful, but who knows.
Regarding Ehrhoff, i was never a fan of that, and i think we disagreed back at the time of the signing. The only caveat I had was if that meant we can trade Martin for a top winger, then I would like the trade. Otherwise, it's just another year without giving a good shot to our prospects. Injuries derailed what was starting to be a solid season and great contribution for him, but now i think it's clear that 7 & 10 leave in free agency. Maybe get rid of 4. And have some new blood come in. Olli healthy and Kris healthy will be the biggest piece.
DJ
4-24-2015, 12:33 am
We need Metallica writing a new song, a la "Enter Sandman" for Mariano Rivera.
"Enter Snowman" for Caminero! Can see this nickname sticking -- pun intended.
Exit light, enter white. Take my hand. We're off to winter wonderland.
Sounds like a winner.
ziggygreece
4-24-2015, 1:37 am
+1
LoufromOSU
4-24-2015, 8:05 am
Or will they just play "Snowman" by the Clarks. :)
I doubt that would have the same effect to pump up the crowd.
prejames
4-24-2015, 12:35 am
I'm not sure what NBCSN sees in McGuire. Nobody needs to hear where each player played junior hockey. It adds absolutely nothing to the broadcast.
Don't get me started on Milbury and Roenick. Not sure why anyone wants to here analysis from the worst GM in the history of the NHL night after night. Roenick's caveman bro shtick doesn't add much either. Give me Weekes or Craig Button over those guys.
We need to get Gary Thorne out of exile. He's calling Orioles games on MASN. Only national audience he gets nowadays is from EA Sports
LoufromOSU
4-24-2015, 8:07 am
G Victor couldn't be more right...Thorne was the best national play-by-play man back when espIn acknowledged the sport existed.
WildcatRay
4-24-2015, 9:16 am
The issue is who holds the US TV rights. Comcast/NBC/Cryers aka Ed Snider and Family.
Most, if not all the analysts dare not criticize the league, the officials, the Cryers or what or whoever for fear of losing their jobs. But, I feel that I must add that the fear of criticizing would be little different if ESPN held the TV rights as the league still will have a say in who is on the telecasts.
April 24, 2015
Friday Insider: Setting Penguins’ record straight
by Dejan Kovacevic • Friday Insider • Penguins, Pirates, Steelers
Jim Rutherford was hired by the Penguins as general manager last summer. — GETTY
BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC
HARRISBURG — Roundup of a lot of randomness from a lot of time around our teams …
• Sometimes in this business, you hear whispers, rumor, second-hand or third-hand word, and it’s difficult to discern what’s worth putting out to the public and what isn’t.
Not so with the following information I received yesterday afternoon: The Penguins absolutely, positively, unequivocally have no plan to remove Jim Rutherford and/or Mike Johnston, regardless of how the season ends.
This comes straight from the top. No middleman. No room for misinterpretation.
What’s more, the team has no expectation that Rutherford, 66, will resign or retire.
The broader stance, again straight from the top, is that the 2014-15 team has been besieged by key injuries, particularly on defense — where three of the top four players were lost in Kris Letang, Christian Ehrhoff and Olli Maatta — and that this facet has been more responsible for the team’s flat finish. The name cited most often, actually, is that of Maatta. Not because he’s seen as more important than Letang but because he was lost so early and forced Johnston to alter his breakouts and puck-support systems to something that didn’t require above-average mobile defensemen.
The stance on Rutherford is that most of his many trades were good, and that’s pretty much indisputable, I’d say. He took his biggest gamble right away in getting Patric Hornqvist for James Neal, and Hornqvist has been exemplary in every way even as the Predators have been happy with Neal. He invested a first-round pick in now-struggling David Perron, but the Penguins see him as a potential 30-goal scorer once he gets back to shooting pucks without first needing to read ‘War and Peace.’ Trades for Daniel Winnik, Nick Spaling and the like haven’t looked as attractive as they might, the stance goes, had they not been forced to play top-six roles due to injury. Pluggers should plug. Maxim Lapierre was added because he was expected to be a better playoff performer than Marcel Goc, which he has been by a mile. Acquiring Ian Cole for Robert Bortuzzo has been an outright heist. And even the one trade that doesn’t look good from a hockey standpoint, Ben Lovejoy for Simon Despres, is viewed without regret for reasons beyond hockey pertaining to both men.
One area where I strongly differ from the front office — vociferously, actually — is that they feel Rutherford wasn’t to blame for the late-season cap fiasco, as it involved what they feel was an extraordinary, worst-case circumstance in Letang and Ehrhoff both going down. It says here that covering for worst-case scenarios is part of the job.
I don’t have nearly as clear a view about the stance on Johnston, other than that he’s safe, so I won’t speculate as to why that sentiment exists.
Short version: No blowup is on the horizon. Not this summer.
See the Game 4 column for more about what to expect instead.
• The man held responsible for the hole dug, especially in the organization as related to depth and youth, very much remains Ray Shero. That’s as it should be.
• Know that plans for 2015-16 will include giving Taylor Chorney a real chance. He has impressed not only Johnston, who fairly glows about him, but also his teammates.
“The guy,” Marc-Andre Fleury told me, “is just everywhere, so smart, quick, good with the puck.”
• Olli Maatta is living and dying with the Penguins shift to shift, from high overhead. It’s no fun seeing him up in the press box, for obvious reasons, but it’s been telling about his passion and team spirit.
• What in the world would have compelled NBC color commentator Pierre McGuire, during Game 1 at the Garden and in between the benches, to raise his right arm to call attention to a referee while Steve Downie was crosschecking one of the Rangers in front of him?
It requires reading body language, but McGuire looked disgusted by what he was witnessing and his motion was suggesting to the ref something like, ‘Hey, are you seeing this?’
The network, of course, didn’t air this. But it could be seen on the in-house feed at the Garden, which is available to media covering the event.
If the Penguins can get a copy of this footage to corroborate, they’d have every grounds to ask NBC to remove McGuire from future broadcasts. It’s not about overt favoritism. That happens. It’s about interfering with the actual game — in any way — toward assisting one team over another.
I’ll put out a request right here, in fact: If anyone has access to this footage, please contact this site, and I’ll publish it in full context for everyone to see.
A brief snow squall hit PNC Park during the Pirates’ game against the Cubs on Wednesday. — GETTY
• When Arquimedes Caminero pitched for the Pirates in that brief snow squall Wednesday at PNC Park, a new level of difficulty for hitting a baseball might have been born, as he achieved 101 mph on the gun while snow-sleet blinded every batter he faced.
But something else might have been born, too.
“Snowman!” Caminero exclaimed my way yesterday after the win over the Cubs.
When I sought clarification, the big man explained that when his inning was done, Vance Worley playfully dubbed him “The Snowman” and that others in the clubhouse have caught on.
That’s tremendous, right?
“I kind of like it,” he answered with a grin. “You know, you want to be cool out there.”
And snow is … yeah.
“Yeah.”
• If you were watching at the yard or even on TV and wondered what Caminero was using for swing-and-miss pitches the past couple nights, know that he’s got two — a split-change and a cutter — which look basically the same coming out of his hand but take completely different routes.
He leaned on the splitty Wednesday, the cutter yesterday, mixing in the heat presumably to amuse himself.
• Two ridiculous minutes with Andrew Lambo, including stuff on his hitting the other way with authority yesterday, his confidence and his defending Crosby from the critics:
Not everyone picks up on hitting to the opposite field, by the way, at least not until it’s too late. Lambo has been OK going oppo in the minors, but he’s needed to improve significantly in the majors.
I asked McCutchen about that: “You can get away with a lot in the minors, even up to the high minors. But once you get up here, with how you get pitched, you’ve got no choice. What he did today is what he’s got to do, what anybody’s got to do.”
Asked Hurdle, too: “Andrew knows now that he’s got to do that with some pitches. And he is. It’s a great sign from him, and it’s great to see something to help his confidence a little.”
• Apologies in advance if this is getting repetitive, but this is the best clubhouse I’ve been around in a decade of covering the Pirates. And I’m saying that in the sports sense, not whether or not they’re swell guys or give good interviews. I’m talking about their tightness.
At some point this summer, that will be worth a full column with descriptive material.
• It’s instructive that Le’Veon Bell last night told NFL Network during a studio visit that his knee is now “close to 100 percent.” He added: “I’m probably about 85-90 percent, been able to run on it a little bit. So I’m getting back to working out a little.”
Just a reminder: Bell was expected by some to have at least a small chance to play that very weekend in the playoff game against the Ravens. And if not then, almost certainly the following week. Bell himself told reporters, including me in some questioning away from the pack, that he was positive he’d be ready in the event of a win.
But here were are, four months later, and it still isn’t fully healthy.
Maybe it’s just as well the Steelers didn’t advance.
• Following a Bell item with one about ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. might be in obvious bad taste, given their little social media flare-up this past fall, but hey: As close as anyone gets to hard, verifiable draft news is by following those who invest 362 days of the year into the three that encompass the draft, so it’s telling that in the live mock draft last night between Kiper and Todd McShay — one taking even-numbered selections, the other taking odd — Kiper chose UConn corner Byron Jones with the Steelers’ No. 22 pick.
That’s mostly notable because, in previous mocks, Kiper had the Steelers taking another corner, Wake Forest’s Kevin Johnson, but this time he dropped Johnson and had the Ravens taking him at No. 26.
This sort of thing tends to happen only when new information about teams’ preference becomes known. And that makes sense, if you think about it, considering neither Jones nor Johnson are participating in any games or combines these days to rise or fall.
As long as it’s a corner.
• Good dude: Rutherford.
No, I’m not going to stir all this up anew. This is mostly about the GM himself.
TSN’s Bob McKenzie, the continent’s unquestioned finest hockey reporter, was speaking on Canadian television this week after the much-discussed incident, and he called Rutherford “a man I’ve known for a very long time and am fortunate to call a friend” as well as “one of the best men I know.”
Rutherford did something dumb. I was there. I saw it. I heard it. What’s more, he initiated it. The correct course of action for the GM would have been to request, either through media relations or with the reporter directly, an audience to air out grievances. Like a private Festivus, if you will. I’ve had such requests more times than I can count, and almost always, they resulted in at least an understanding of the other side’s position, if not an appreciation.
That didn’t happen here. Rutherford was in the heat of a devastating loss, in a packed elevator, and he was right there against someone he’d have been better off not seeing in that particular setting and mood. And so, after exiting that elevator and taking a few steps, he turned and said something nasty. It wasn’t loud. He wasn’t shouting. In fact, it was barely audible, even to the only other person nearby at this stage, that being me.
Rutherford blew it. He did.
But it happens.
It happens all the time in covering sports, especially at the major-league level, where so much is on the line, so much time and energy invested.
It’s up to any media outlet to cover stuff like this as they please. At this site, the policy will be what it’s always been for me, and that’s this: I cover the news. And if I report to to you every time someone’s mad at me — which, again, happens all the time — then you begin to doubt whether or not I can continue covering a certain individual or team. To me, that tradeoff isn’t worth it. I’d rather try harder to reconnect relations or, if need be, continue covering without the cooperation of the individual at hand. I’ve done that, too. Many, many times. I’ve no doubt in my mind, for example, that about half the front office of the local baseball team still despises me for the ‘Hoka Hey’ reporting a few years back. It doesn’t change a thing. I still communicate with them, still do my job, and they do likewise.
An even bigger example was the single biggest exclusive of my career, that being when I learned that the Penguins had secretly voted Mario Lemieux a $10 million raise during their bankruptcy period, potentially at the cost of paying back small-time creditors. (They eventually paid back every penny.)
Lemieux saw me on the morning that blared across the top of the Post-Gazette’s front page. I was sitting with Herb Brooks in his office at the Civic Arena. Lemieux paused by the doorway, made eye contact and said: “Who was your source? Because I’m going to have to kill him.”
Lemieux could have hated my guts for all time. He didn’t. He cracked that joke, winked and kept walking. We continue to have a great mutual trust to this day. He knew I had a job to do, and I did it.
Personal stuff in either direction doesn’t — or shouldn’t — affect any praise or criticism a journalist makes. That’s why it’s personal and not professional.
Rutherford went personal. That stunk.
But it’s also the case that he had a bad isolated moment with a reporter he felt has been out to get him and the Penguins for nearly a year. It wasn’t, as some have stated, about being sensitive to being criticized. Not from the team’s viewpoint. Rather, it’s about things being portrayed as facts that the team believes are not facts.
I’ve ripped the Penguins repeatedly over the past season, including the front office and medical stuff for their near-comical butchering of the mumps mess. In fact, I was the only writer in town to do so. The team didn’t welcome the criticism. They didn’t enjoy it. But they also didn’t complain at all, presumably because there was nothing factually incorrect.
The only reason I piped up this week — and long-time readers can attest I very rarely address anything related to local media — was that I didn’t like how Rutherford was being portrayed from an accuracy standpoint. I don’t know the man well at all, to be honest. We most certainly aren’t friends. But wrong is wrong.