Monday, June 09, 2014

Bylsma, Shero left subpar legacy

How many assistant GMs does one team need?
How many future GMs is Jim Rutherford supposed to train?
Pierre McGuire might have been expected to mentor Dan Potash.
Rutherford, a Penguins goalie from 1971-74, gave me his autograph a bunch of times when I was a kid. His new appointment should increase their value. Check out eBay if you want one. A Rutherford autograph has to be worth more than Deryk Engelland. The player, not his signature.
The Penguins’ GM decision took the path less traveled.
How often is a GM openly considered a short-term hire?
If Jason Botterill isn’t ready to be a GM now, will a couple years under Rutherford elevate him? How? Botterill is 38 and has worked for the Penguins since 2006. Does he have to unlearn anything? Based on the last five years, the answer is yes.
Will the coach also be a short-term hire? Will, say, Jacques Martin coach for a season, then make way for Mike Babcock? Babcock has one year left on his contract with Detroit. Talk of him coming to Pittsburgh will not cease until he signs an extension. Babcock is still in the frame.
What do Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin think about all this?
Rutherford mentioned Crosby and Malkin in his opening remarks. He gets it.
Rutherford also seems to understand where the Penguins went wrong, and where ex-coach Dan Bylsma went wrong. Seems Bylsma didn’t adjust, not during games or during playoff series. Where did I hear that before?
Oh, yeah: EVERYWHERE. Bylsma masked his stubbornness/lack of coaching acumen with a nifty catchphrase – “Get to our game” – but his shortcomings were well-known everywhere besides Consol Energy Center, where the emperor was thought to be clad in a snappy ensemble.
Bylsma and deposed GM Ray Shero left a legacy of one Stanley Cup. That’s it.
Bylsma and Shero may ultimately be most remembered for taking a foolproof situation and letting it gradually and undeniably deteriorate.
Shero was an assistant GM at Nashville from 1998-2006, then came to Pittsburgh and drafted like he was still at Nashville.
Shero had hockey’s best 1-2 center punch, but chose to stockpile defensemen and roster subpar wings. Shero considered bottom-six forwards unimportant beyond the third-line center. He once called Colby Armstrong a “minor-leaguer,” but this past season’s Penguins could have desperately used a player of Armstrong’s character and influence. That was a soft, wimpy, quiet dressing room.
Bylsma got lucky. He replaced Michel Therrien at a time when Therrien had lost the locker room. Bylsma’s biggest qualification: He wasn’t Therrien.
There’s no denying Bylsma’s role in winning the Stanley Cup in 2009. There’s also no denying that the Penguins become less and less prolific at playoff hockey as they got further away from Therrien’s structure and accountability. Bylsma was beneficiary of a perfect storm. After 2009, he was a specialist at winning meaningless games. Nothing more.
Under Shero and Bylsma, there was too little everyday tension. That’s why the Penguins got so quickly frustrated in the uncompromising glare of the post-season. The get-along gang went from zero to badly rattled in mere seconds. That’s how you blow a three-games-to-one advantage twice in four years.
Shero and Bylsma preferred veterans to youth. That denied the Penguins the regular influx of hungry, enthusiastic kids that provides energy and keeps a team on its toes.
If those evaluations seem harsh, they’re no less accurate. Bylsma and Shero are both good guys, but who cares about that?
Rutherford could turn out to be a mean old man if things go bad. That might suit the Penguins best: A mean old man.
Rutherford’s track record at Carolina was checkered: Just five playoff berths in 20 years with the franchise. But Rutherford won a Stanley Cup, and got to another final. He never had the resources in Carolina that he’s got in Pittsburgh.
Mark Madden hosts a radio show 3-6 p.m. weekdays on WXDX-FM (105.9).

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