Penguins Update: Is Rutger McGroarty the new Brooks Orpik?

No sooner do I announce my semi-retirement from blogging then I get an idea for an article.

I know. The incongruity of it all…lol.

Anyway. A thought occurred to me this morning and I figured I’d commit fingertips to keyboard and flesh it out. To wit…is recently acquired Rutger McGroarty the new Brooks Orpik?

No, I haven’t lost my mind. And, yes, I fully realize the former is a forward with scoring pedigree while the latter was a decidedly stay-at-home defenseman possessing little in the way of offensive chops.

It’s the type of player they are that begs me to draw my comparison, not to mention the accompanying shift in organizational philosophy.

But first, step into the WABAC machine with me and travel back in time. In the late 1990s, then-GM Craig Patrick kept rolling the dice on skill-oriented Euros with his first-round picks. To that end, Robert Dome (’97), Milan Kraft (’98) and Konstantin Koltsov (’99) came and went in fairly rapid succession, each without having much impact.

Then…during the 2000 Entry Draft, Patrick made a hard right turn at the draft table and selected Orpik with the 18^th overall pick. A bruising 217-pound defenseman out of Boston College, Orpik was as physical and forceful as and his first-round predecessors were benign.

I recall being shocked at the abrupt change in philosophy…happily so. I couldn’t wait for Brooks to arrive on the scene. When he finally did after a couple of seasons with the Baby Pens, I wasn’t disappointed. As promised, the Bay Area native quickly established himself as one of the hardest-hitting defensemen in franchise history, ranking right up there with the likes of Dennis Owchar, Frankie Leroux and the devastating Lithuanian, Darius Kasparaitis.

Needless to say, the rock ‘em, sock ‘em defenseman was a force to be reckoned with. During the third period of Game 3 of the ’09 Cup Final, Orpik made like a human battering-ram and famously laid waste to four Red Wings on a single shift. Down 2-games-to-none at the time, the Pens took four of five to capture the Cup.

But it wasn’t just Orpik. Suddenly Patrick and his staff began selecting scrappers like Colby Armstrong, Paul Bissonnette, Daniel Carcillo, Tyler Kennedy, David Koci, Ryan Stone, Max Talbot and Joe Vitale. Not all of them made the grade, but some did, and they transformed the heretofore “soff” Pens into a squad that was edgier and much more difficult to play against.

I see the same type of organizational shift occurring with the McGroarty-for-Brayden Yager swap. Yes, Yager is skilled (so was Kraft), although my sense is he’ll need linemates to do the heavy lifting for him if he’s to reach his maximum potential.

Players like McGroarty.

Measuring in at 6’1” and 205 pounds, Rutger is already physically mature at 20 years of age. Capable of playing a man’s game, he’s been likened to the Tkachuk brothers in terms of playing style.

That’s good enough for me. Lord knows we need players who aren’t afraid to bang and grind and compete.

Second-round pick, Tanner Howe, a buzz-saw cut from the Carcillo/Kennedy/Talbot cloth but with better hands, fits the bill, too.

It tells me POHO/GM Kyle Dubas has been paying attention to the type of teams that are winning Stanley Cups.

It tells me he gets it.

That bodes well for our future.