Pittsburgh Penguins GM Jim Rutherford may be done for now, but he’s not finished making moves
TSN: Bob McKenzie on the Pittsburgh Penguins and GM Jim Rutherford.
“I don’t think by any longshot that Rutherford feels like that he’s finished. He wants to see how his team performs since making the trade, but just about anything and everything is on the table.
I think it’s very safe to speculate that the list of untouchable players on the Pittsburgh Penguins roster starts and ends with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. And that would be about it.
So open for business, but those big deals are hard to make. But, open for business nonetheless.”
Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: The Penguins have lost nine of their past 10 games. It’s expected that GM Jim Rutherford will make another move, but that may not be the case.
“As we speak now, the guys we have now are going to have to figure out a way to get out of this,” Rutherford told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by phone on Sunday afternoon. “We have the players who can do it.”
This doesn’t mean that he’s ruling out a trade but he won’t make a move just to make a move or to trade out a player who hasn’t been performing well.
“We’ll always consider trying to upgrade our team if the right deal comes along,” Rutherford said.
Daniel Sprong‘s name has been out there and you would think by now if there was an interested team he would have been traded by now.
Potential trade candidates include Olli Maatta, Bryan Rust, Phil Kessel, Derick Brassard and Jamie Oleksiak.
Trading Kessel would send the wrong message to the team and fans.
Mark Madden of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review: A ‘single trade’ won’t get the Penguins back on track.
What kind of return would trading Derick Brassard or Daniel Sprong bring back?
Even trading Phil Kessel may not bring back much aside from salary cap relief.