CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- The first day of NHL free agency, from the Penguins' perspective, was probably defined by the people going: Chris Kunitz to the Lightning. Nick Bonino to the Predators. Trevor Daley to the Red Wings. Ron Hainsey to the Maple Leafs.
There also was a pretty important guy staying: Justin Schultz for three years, $16.5 million.
Maybe it was just me, but I was a whole lot more interested all Saturday long in who was coming.
Meaning, in this case, coming like a freight train:
Yeah, that up there is young Zach Aston-Reese. Perhaps you've read a word or two about him on this site. If you did, you won't be surprised at all that, in the course of the otherwise innocuous three-on-three scrimmage that closed out the team's annual development camp, he eschewed all that open ice on a partial break to charge the crease and annihilate poor Sean Maguire in goal, mask sent flying, bodies sprawling.
Aston-Reese was penalized for that. In a three-on-three scrimmage. Where he was the one with the scoring chance.
"The closer you get to the NHL, the harder it gets," the kid would say. "That just means putting in more work."
I can't love hockey enough sometimes.
In the second session, it was Daniel Sprong's turn. And his approach, while less physically imposing, might have been even more threatening:
Sprong's team scored eight goals in that scrimmage. He had only five of those.
"I've tried to focus on my defensive game, doing the right things on that side of the puck," this kid would say. "On the other side, I feel like my skill will take over."
You think?
Wow. Both of them. Just wow.
I'm not sure when exactly the Penguins most recently had two forwards of this pedigree coming up the pipe, but I'm sure of this: Their timing couldn't be more perfect.
Because if one were to take a step back from these 24 hours, away from the Stanley Cup sentimentality, the contract minutiae, the cap room and all that other stuff, what matters most to the Penguins is what's coming next. And my singular takeaway from the day, if forced to condense, would be that Jim Rutherford took exactly the right first steps toward a third consecutive championship.
Which is to say, he didn't get in the way of those on the way.
No, that doesn't mean Aston-Reese, the NCAA's scoring champion this past winter, and Sprong, who cracked the NHL with a cameo two years ago before dominating the Quebec League this past winter, will make the Penguins out of camp this fall. If anything, based on Rutherford's response to my question Saturday, they're already slotted for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton for half of the 2017-18 season or more:
Sounds about right, doesn't it?
Handing rookies scholarships, regardless of skill level, would fly in the face of how this franchise has conducted itself during these two remarkable seasons. Bryan Rust, Conor Sheary and Matt Murray had to earn it. So did Jake Guentzel. And because of that, they fit beautifully into an existing dynamic. They were embraced. They were respected. Most important by far, they were that much readier to meet the demands at hand, not least of which are Mike Sullivan's expectations on and off the ice.
That's fine. There's time.
But now, there's also space.
Kunitz should rightly be remembered as a franchise treasure. A three-time champion here who, in what now was his farewell playoff, won Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final and set up the Cup-winner in Nashville. There aren't enough superlatives for all that he brought over the past decade. He'll be missed.
But he'll turn 38 in September. And his miles, to his credit, have been hard miles on a 5-foot-11 frame that never should have been able to endure so much. And if we take it further, if we're really being honest, there wasn't going to be a reduced role. There couldn't have been. Not here. Not with the constant temptation to place him back alongside Sidney Crosby every time anything went awry. Not with his being second on the power-play net-front depth chart.
Kunitz told reporters in Tampa that he'll "be able to go up and down the line chart if needed," and he's undoubtedly right. Which for the Lightning might be fine. They're not the ones coming off 213 games in a 612-day span. They're not the ones who have no choice but to get younger, fresher, faster at as many spots as possible.
His contract: One year, $2 million.
Bonino left another spot, of course, and a more glaring one. He'll fit in Nashville. The Predators sorely missed Ryan Johansen against the Penguins, but his loss never should have been that crippling at center. But here again, we're talking about hard miles, even if he's 29. He's been pummeled with pucks for two years. One of them broke his tibia all the way through. And if those miles are even a small part of why he'd vanish for three-quarters of the regular season, that's a shortcoming in and of itself.
His contract: Four years, $16.4 million.
Daley's 33. The man can barely walk. You'd have to see it to appreciate it. No, his skating remained intact, and that's ultimately all that matters. But I'll revisit hard miles here, as well. Just in his short time in Pittsburgh, he's had his knee blown out and who-knows-what-else to contribute to his current state.
His contract: Three years, $9.5 million.
Hainsey's 36. He never had a chance to return. Tremendous story. A permanent part of the lore of this championship. A genuine inspiration. But he was a pure rental.
His contract: Two years, $6 million.
Let's be blunt on all four of these terms: For Kunitz to accept so little from Tampa Bay, and based on our reporting, he got no offer at all from the Penguins. And for all the rest, the prices were so out of whack with reality, even in one of the most miserable free-agent markets in recent memory, that Rutherford would have had to lose his mind to negotiate with, never mind sign, any of them.
He rightly offered nothing but platitudes for all of them. But, equally rightly, he offered them next to nothing to stay.
From this viewpoint, that was ideal. Because what's left in the wake of that non-action, in addition to room for youngsters to eventually arrive and revitalize the roster, is roughly $11 million in cap space. Or, as Rutherford put it Saturday, "more room to spend than we've had here in many years."
That came from paying what was necessary -- three years, $16.5 million -- to keep Schultz, a vital cog on a team that can't always count on Kris Letang to be there. That came from getting a cheap backup goaltender in Antti Niemi -- one year, $700,000 -- who was terrible for the Stars last season but who's won enough in the past that a rebound isn't unthinkable in lesser duty. And that came from replacing Daley with Matt Hunwick, a 32-year-old defense-first type, at another decent rate -- three years, $6.75 million -- and Rutherford sounding so satisfied with that signing that he surprisingly declared his blue line a done deal.
Where will that $11 million go?
About half, by reasonable estimation, is headed toward Brian Dumoulin and Conor Sheary, who, like Schultz was, are restricted free agents. Something would be available, too, should Matt Cullen decide to return.
And the rest?
Well, that's the punchline. Because Rutherford himself, candid as ever, acknowledged at this podium that his only remaining need is a No. 3 center and that such a player can be had only via trade and that he's determined to get that player whether it takes "one day or two months" or even into the regular season. That's been the man's M.O. for years. He sets his sights on a target, and he pushes and pushes and pushes until he succeeds.
In this case, as he's also acknowledged, there are five teams with which he's currently engaged in trade talks. The most prominent and obvious target, if only because he's almost everyone's prominent and obvious target, is Matt Duchene of the Avalanche. Joe Sakic is known to be seeking a mint in return, and Rutherford's been known to get turned off early in such processes -- for example, he bowed out of the Kevin Shattenkirk chase earlier this year after a single phone call to St. Louis -- but there's been no rebuffing of Colorado yet, as far as we can tell.
Maybe it's Duchene. Maybe it's someone else.
Whoever it is, there's now a door that's wide open to welcome someone new.
