Penguins GM Jim Rutherford reaps rewards of not turning over roster

When the Penguins won the franchise's fourth NHL championship a year ago, general manager Jim Rutherford's fingerprints were all over the Stanley Cup.

His trades to acquire Phil Kessel, Trevor Daley and Carl Hagelin in the 11 months prior drastically changed the face of the team.

This season, as the Penguins claimed their fifth title, Rutherford's moves were more subtle, but make no mistake. For the second straight year, the 68-year-old Rutherford had the golden touch.

“This was the toughest one,” Rutherford said, comparing his most recent championship to last year's run and his title in Carolina in 2006. “We had a lot of guys banged up. They had the will to win and play. They're just gutsy, determined, talented guys.”

Now that he's won three Stanley Cups as a general manager, Rutherford is in some dignified company. Among active GMs, only Chicago's Stan Bowman and Detroit's Ken Holland have won as many championships.

In NHL history, only eight GMs have won more titles. They're all in the Hall of Fame, and half — Jack Adams, Conn Smythe, Frank Selke and Art Ross — have trophies named after them. It's not hard to imagine Rutherford joining them in enshrinement in Toronto some day.

For now, though, the most critical decision Rutherford faced in his quest to win a third championship was made shortly after the Penguins won in San Jose last June. He chose to keep his roster largely intact.

It was a risky proposition, not because of talent but because of potential attrition.

By deciding against turning over a significant portion of his roster, Rutherford insured that many of his key players would have more than 200 games of wear on their tires from the start of the 2015-16 season to the glorious end in Nashville on Sunday night.

The trade-off, Rutherford figured, was worth it. His players might be a little run down, but they would have chemistry and they would know how to win.

“I didn't doubt it,” Rutherford said. “As it's turned out, it's turned out right because that group of guys learned how to win last year. Learned how to win big games, and we had to win some big games. We knew how to win those games. It's how we won in Washington. How we beat Ottawa in seven games. How we come in here and win Game 6 in Nashville. Those guys know how to win.”

Rutherford made two significant decisions when he evaluated which moves needed to be made in-season.

First, he decided to hold off on trading goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, though it would have been easier from a personnel management standpoint to make the move. It could have allowed Fleury to be a starter somewhere else and taken some of the ego-juggling pressure off coach Mike Sullivan.

Rutherford believed in having depth at the position he played during his 13-year NHL career, so he stood pat. He was rewarded when Matt Murray went down with a lower-body injury before the playoff opener, and Fleury was ready to step in and carry the load for the first two rounds.

Second, as the trade deadline approached, Rutherford decided he needed to make some moves to add depth to an injury-depleted blue line.

At the time, he acquired Ron Hainsey from Carolina and Mark Streit from Philadelphia via Tampa Bay to fill in for Olli Maatta and Trevor Daley. In the end, when Kris Letang needed season-ending neck surgery in April, those pick-ups helped keep a defense corps missing its best player from foundering and sinking.

Rutherford knew the defense group he put together wouldn't be the stars of the show in the playoffs, but he also didn't buy the notion that a team needed a Letang-style workhorse to be considered a Stanley Cup contender.

“I still felt good about it because I had that experience in Carolina,” Rutherford said. “That's what I told our guys. You can do it without a No. 1 guy. You've got to manage their minutes. Those guys have got to play within themselves. That's what our six defensemen did. They played at the highest level they could and got it done.”

Jonathan Bombulie is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at jbombulie@tribweb.com or via Twitter at @BombulieTrib.