http://penguins.nhl.com/club/news.htm?i ... PIT-search“We had a very, very long meeting this morning and this afternoon because most of these people were here when Ben was here before . . . our guys felt very strong about reacquiring this player.”
But then this recent Rutherford quote trade made me question even more just how much influence he has (which I did not think was a lot even before I saw it), and who else might be pulling the strings.
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/gene ... 1504090088“I would expect that that would be criticized,” Rutherford said. “If we had [Christian] Ehrhoff and Letang playing, we could plug Lovejoy and [Ian] Cole where I expected they’d fit. One thing about Lovejoy that I said at the time: This is a trade that over time will not be in our favor. We traded a young player [Simon Despres] for him, but our hockey organization is basically a group of nine people, and [it was clear] the trade was made more for experience, a trade that would give us a better chance in the playoffs.”
So aside from the 4 GMs, who else do we have: Lemieux, Karmanos, Burkle, Morehouse.... should some of those guys even be involved in hockey decisions? I feel like the idea of bringing JR in as a temporary stopgap/mentor (and someone to bridge the gap between the braintrust and other GMs) was noble in theory, but has really turned out more or less to be a sham, and that the Pens Org is suffering from a case of too many cooks in the kitchen right now, and thus, it's hard to break away from the culture they've created.
I'd hope moving forward that once Rutherford leaves the position that the Pens streamline things a bit more, but I'm not holding my breath.
