GM Jim Rutherford helped deliver two Stanley Cups to the Penguins organization. (Getty)
It only makes sense that Jim Rutherford turned out this way.
Rutherford has operated on one since the Hall of Fame manager took up the job at the Pittsburgh Penguins nearly seven years ago and entered the alleged final chapter of his career, which ended abruptly on Wednesday with the surprise news that he was stepping down for personal reasons The blind focus on the here and now seems to make decisions regardless of the future.
Like there’s no tomorrow
His most powerful weapon was that Rutherford was in many ways the perfect pick for the Penguins when he was hired ahead of the 2014-15 season. Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, took the reins ahead of the NHL’s best one-two at Center Ice, starting their tenth season as the second-generation duo’s team-mate success in franchise history.
This meant he could choose it on a whim, pour all resources into the active roster, and aggressively pursue upgrades while holding a quick trigger when addressing issues on the ice and in the hockey business.
Rutherford would have topped the NHL in subordinates per sixty if it had been a sustained statistic driven by talent at both the player and coach levels at high speed in search of winning combinations.
This aggressive tactic worked great in the beginning.
Rutherford handed over a beleaguered roster, acquiring Phil Kessel, Patric Hornqvist, Nick Bonino, Carl Hagelin, Justin Schultz, Ian Cole, Trevor Daley and Ben Lovejoy, among others, in a series of deals that changed the environment in the Crosby-Malkin ecosystem.
But perhaps his biggest step in those early seasons was the introduction of the third Penguins coach over a period of just under 16 months, replacing his original collaborator Mike Johnston with Mike Sullivan, head of Wilkes-Barre Scranton.
The story goes on
It immediately caught fire with Sullivan at the controls of Rutherford’s revamped roster, and the Penguins won Stanley Cups for the second consecutive year in 2016 and 2017.
This was a mission for Rutherford, who compiled the rosters that would achieve mini dynasty status while securing the legacy of Crosby and Malkin.
But Rutherford continued to work on a different frequency in the years that followed, optimizing his roster to a level like no other manager. He has completed more than 30 trades since the Penguins took their back-to-back Stanley Cup wins, many of which were completed in the past few seasons alone.
This includes negotiating the terms under which Marc-Andre Fleury was selected by the Vegas Golden Knights in the expansion draft and trading with the preferred netminder, Matt Murray, on his final responsible transaction.
This includes sacrificing a first-round draft pick to Ryan Reaves and trading with the Enforcer eight months later.
[RELATED: Penguins GM Jim Rutherford abruptly resigns for personal reasons]
This involves giving up or reacquiring a laundry list of players he has traded in the years and sometimes months before, including Kessel, Hornqvist, Cole, Hagelin, Derrick Brassard, Tanner Pearson, Erik Gudbranson, Alex Galchenyuk, Conor Sheary, and Nick Bjugstad, Dominik Kahun, Riley Sheahan and Jamie Oleksiak.
This also includes returning to perhaps the most successful trade of his tenure, the Kessel move, in order to re-acquire Kasperi Kapanen, the asset originally issued.
Unfortunately, an increased cadence did not lead to more success for Rutherford. Pittsburgh has won a streak in the past three years, technically missing the postseason in the 2019-20 COVID-shortened season with a loss to the Montreal Canadiens.
He’s also made some very questionable squad decisions lately, spending big bucks on the likes of Jack Johnson, and hiring flawed players like Mike Matheson and Cody Ceci.
These recent failures and the lack of success that has haunted the franchise over the past few years will keep many joking around, but Rutherford deserves nothing but praise for his tenure with the organization.
He made things happen in a league of gun-shy general managers who relied too heavily on the fact that trades are difficult to make.
He set the table for the Crosby-Malkin era to realize its potential.
He lifted the Stanley Cup three times himself.
It is possible that the penguins were on the wrong track and needed that change today. Perhaps the answer to the question of who is best to lead lies with Deputy Successor Patrik Allvin.
But whoever has the same level of control as Rutherford will find it difficult to achieve his enormous success.
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