The Penguins: Burnin’ Down the House?

A man whose house is on fire needs water to put out the fire, not to swap bicycles with his next door neighbor, but that is exactly what our Pittsburgh Penguins’ GM Jimmy Rutherford did yesterday. In what would appear to be an altruistic move, Mr. Rutherford helped the Detroit Red Wings yesterday by swapping spare part LW Scott Wilson for equally marginal Riley Sheahan, but in the process of the swap helping to relieve Salary Cap stressed Detroit by reducing their pay roll, taking on the $2,075,000 Cap hit of Sheahan in exchange for the $650,000 Cap hit of Scott Wilson. And in what may be a more mystifying aspect of the deal, Mr. Rutherford paid Detroit a third round draft pick as part of his generosity to help Detroit dig their way out of their self-inflicted hole.

 

Perhaps he was just trying to make amends for getting out from under Rob Scuderi’s contract when he swindled Chicago a couple of years back.

In the meantime, later yesterday, the Tampa Bay Lightning put a big hurt on our favorite flightless fowl giving embattled veteran goalie Antti Niemi a sun burn on the back of his neck from lighting the lamp 7 times for the second time in nine games our local heroes got blown out this year in only 9 outings.

Does that mean we are to expect another 18 blow outs this year?

In the 128 minutes and 8 seconds our veteran Finnish friend, Niemi, has patrolled the pipes back-stopping our Penguins, he is averaging 7.49 Goals Against per 60 minute game, stopping a whopping 79.7% shots he has faced. Last year we fans were concerned when long time legend Marc-Andre Fleury’s Save Percentage dipped below 0.900, this year Niemi has dipped below 0.800, but Mr. Rutherford chooses to help Detroit out of their financial jam rather than address the turnstile backing up Matt Murray.

Granted, I was all for letting Tristan Jarry handle the back-up role this year, so some may suggest that is the only thing the our Penguins need to do, but I am sorry to say, Jarry is himself struggling right now down in Wilkes-Barre Scranton (WBS). His goals against average is 3.96, better than Niemi’s 7.49 by a long shot, but Jarry’s numbers appear bloated against AHL level talent, not NHL level talent. Furthermore, Penguins management seems to be putting the same pressure on themselves that prevented them from winning back-to-back Cups in 2010 and up through the beginning of Mike Sullivan’s tenure in 2015-2016; their mantra seems to have reverted to the bury the kids in WBS and bring in veterans whose talent is at best equal to the kids’ talent, often times; not, but who have played more NHL games and have higher paychecks. So, it would seem that the Penguins would be more than likely try and trade away more future assets to redress this abysmal goal situation to chase that 3-peat.

As bad as Niemi has been, he hasn’t gotten any help from many of his teammates. Looking at Conor Sheary and Kris Letang and the number of even strength goals these guys give up per 60 minutes of ice time; Sheary is contributing 6.18 goals against to the Penguins woes and Assistant Captain Kris Letang is helping bury Penguin Goalies to the tune of 5.87 even strength goals against per 60 minutes of even strength ice time. Looking at the Penguins Goalies’ even strength goals against, since Murray’s is 4.24 and Niemi’s is 7.23, it would appear that at least these two players are hurting Murray’s weak showing and contributing mightily to Niemi’s bad play. (explain to me again why Letang is wearing the “A” is leading the team in poor defense among defensemen what the Penguins want their younger players to aspire to?)

But as I said, Mr. Rutherford feels that is better to help Detroit fix their problems rather than his own.

Does anyone really want to see Sheahan play second line Center if Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin miss a game? One other option right now would be to switch Jake Guentzel back to Center, even though that is not the position he has become accustomed to at the NHL level, also in the process depriving the Penguins of a legitimate scoring threat from the Left Wing. Yes the Penguins are blessed with Wingers, but most of them are natural Right Winger with some of them able to play Left Wing when needed. They aren’t that deep at Left Wing.

Of course they could bring up an Adam Johnson or a Teddy Bleuger, but as I mentioned with the Goal-tending dilemma, the Penguins seem petrified of using kids, even though it was kids like Bryan Rust, Conor Sheary, and Tom Kuhnhackl that lifted them the first of these back-to-back Cups.

Unfortunately, due to the auspices of Mr. Rutherford’s charity in taking on Detroit’s Cap debt, Pittsburgh has less than $800,000 in cap space making it very tough for them to try and bring in a quality backup Goalie or even a quality Defenseman who could shoulder some of the heat for a weak goalie, let alone a real Center to fill in when Crosby or Malkin miss games.

I was not happy with the signing of Niemi in the first place, his poor showing has surprised me any. I was no fan of paying Vegas a draft pick to take the best goalie in the expansion draft. I was angry over paying a late first round pick and a spare part center for Ryan Reaves. Now I am extremely unhappy at paying Detroit a 3rd round pick in exchange for taken on their Cap debt. They should have paid us that 3rd round pick allowing them to sign Andreas Athanasiou.

Oh, by the way, even though we now have allegedly the toughest guy in the league, we have gotten softer to play against. Last year after 9 games the Penguins dished out 240 hits compared to the whopping 202 that they have dished out this year, a drop of 38 hits. Without Bonino, they have only blocked 139 shots this year compared to the 148 they had last year. Hits and blocked shots are supposed to be possession related, but last year the Penguins were even in their CORSI (Shots For – Shots Against; this year after 9 games they are -18). So, since CORSI stats are also a more accurate measure of puck possession even though the Penguins are possessing the puck less, they are doing even that much less to retrieve.

No, Mr. Rutherford, your house is on fire. You need to put the fire out, before you swap spare parts with Detroit. Worse yet paying them in the process, putting yourself in a weaker position when time come to repair the fire damage.