Penguins Rutherford Evokes Memories of Bastien

As I was thinking about yesterday’s trade and how it might affect our Penguins—artistically and financially—it brought to mind a general manager from the past.

His name was Aldege “Baz” Bastien. Like present-day GM Jim Rutherford he, too, was a former goalie who had once backstopped a Steel City hockey team. In Baz’s case, the old Pittsburgh Hornets of the AHL. He was struck in the eye with a puck one night, back when netminders plied their trade barefaced. It cost him the eye…and a promising career. Which forever endeared him to our hardscrabble, steelworker fans.

Baz worked his way into management with Detroit and Kansas City before eventually returning to Pittsburgh in 1976 as the Pens assistant GM. The following year he was promoted to general manager. Recalling the gritty goalie from the Hornets’ glory days, most fans heartily endorsed the move.

Bastien arrived at a troubled time. The Penguins had entered into receivership—effectively declaring bankruptcy—only two years earlier.  Edward DeBartolo, Sr. and his construction millions had not yet arrived on the scene. The existing owners hardly had deep pockets. Nor were the Penguins a popular draw. Sellouts were extremely rare. More often than not, the team skated before sparse crowds at the old Civic Arena.

Needless to say, Bastien faced a difficult mandate. Keep what was, at best, a mediocre team with too few stars afloat. Do it with a farm system that had been slashed to the bone by penny-pinching owners. And do it on a shoestring budget.

Since finances didn’t afford Baz the luxury of waiting for prospects to develop, he made trades. Lots of ‘em. Twenty-eight, by my count, over the course of his six seasons at the helm.

Some, like prying power-play wizard Paul Gardner loose from Toronto for a pair of minor-leaguers? Brilliant. Others, such as surrendering a first-round pick to Washington for pedestrian winger Hartland Monahan? Terrible. Most were tit-for-tat—swapping our problem players for those of another club.

To sweeten the pot, Baz often included draft choices in his trades. During his tenure he dealt four first-round picks. Second- and third-round choices, too.

If this has an all-too-familiar ring, it should. While the underlying forces at work are different, Rutherford operates in much the same manner. Pressed, I’m sure, by an ownership group that desires to maintain a certain degree of luster for a shopworn team in order to sell it, JR’s caught in an endless cycle of trying to make improvements to a fading former champion without the aid of a productive farm system or significant salary-cap space. A dynamic that compels him to overreach or overpay. Or both. Which he seems to do quite regularly these days.

Kind of like thrashing about in quicksand. Or “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic,” as a commenter on another blog so aptly put it.

The Baz Bastien Era did not end well. After bobbing along like a cork atop turbulent seas through five choppy seasons, the team sank like a stone in Baz’s final year. Just as he was about to plot a new and uncharted course—building through the draft—Bastien tragically perished following an automobile accident in the spring of 1983.

His predecessor, Eddie Johnston, was left to set the new plan in motion. Fortunately, a phenom named Mario Lemieux was waiting in the wings.