CRANBERRY, Pa. -- During his decade in Pittsburgh, Jason Botterill left his fingerprints on three Stanley Cup championships.
He just might have helped their march toward another.
The Penguins traded Conor Sheary and Matt Hunwick, their two most dispensable contracts, to the Sabres for a conditional fourth-round pick in the 2019 NHL Draft, an exchange that frees up $5.25 million each of the next two seasons. With that, Jim Rutherford gains the freedom to give raises as needed, as well as adding a player or two. And from the Buffalo perspective, Botterill, the second-year GM there, gains two players who have the speed and skill to help a roster in need of pretty much everything.
"Part of it is it helps us with with the restricted guys," Rutherford told me Wednesday at the Lemieux Sports Complex before the start of the team's development camp. "It doesn't get us right up against the cap, but if the right thing comes along on July 1, we'll do it."
Then the GM laughed, "But I don’t feel a need we have to spend the money right away just because we have it."
Sheary was set to begin the second season of a three-year, $9 million contract. Hunwick was to enter the second season of a three-year, $6.75 million deal.
The diminutive Sheary helped the Penguins to championships in 2016 and '17, including scoring the game-winning goal in overtime of Game 2 of the '16 Cup Final against the Sharks, but suffered through a wildly inconsistent 18-goal, 30-point season in 2017-18.
Rutherford said it was particularly difficult to let go of Sheary given their pasts together.
"Part of two Cups, it’s always hard when you have to make these decisions, but it’s the way the system works under the cap when you have a successful team," Rutherford told me. "Eventually you're going to have to give up players that you don't want to."
Hunwick came to the Penguins as a free agent last season after a decade in the league but proved to be a poor fit in Mike Sullivan's system. The 33-year-old defenseman had 10 points (four goals, six assists) in 42 games but was a healthy scratch for most of the second half of the season.
"When he came here he just tried to do way too much," Rutherford was saying. "He came into a championship team and tried to impress. He didn’t play his game within himself and that made it tough for him. But he was a true pro here, he was a great guy and he still has NHL hockey left in him. But it didn’t work out here."
Rutherford's latest trade comes a day after he re-signed versatile forward Bryan Rust to a four-year, $14 million contract. With Sheary and Hunwick off the books, the Penguins should have cap space to re-sign defenseman Jamie Oleksiak. Rutherford said that a deal for the RFA defenseman will "get done at some point."
Early Wednesday evening, the Penguins announced that RFA center Riley Sheahan was signed to a one-year, $2.1 million deal.
Obviously many things could happen after the start of free agency on Sunday, but the Penguins could now have a need for a veteran bottom-six left wing. The loss of Sheary leaves Jake Guentzel, Carl Hagelin, Zach Aston-Reese and Dominik Simon as the left wings on the roster. Aston-Reese and Simon have 49 combined regular-season games experience between them.
Aston-Reese figures to be a lock for the opening night lineup, while Simon was re-signed earlier this week to a two-year, one-way contract that will pay him $750,000 annually. Hagelin is set to make $4 million this season but is an unrestricted free agent after the 2018-19 season.
Hunwick's departure leaves the Penguins thin along the blue line. They have six NHL-caliber defensemen, including Chad Ruhwedel. There are some in the organization who feel that Ruhwedel is best served as a seventh defenseman, spotting when necessary. Naturally, that leaves Rutherford looking to bolster his blueline and that's what he told DKPittsburghSports.com his priority is heading into the weekend.
"We have good forwards," he told me. "That's why we were able to trade Conor. We feel very comfortable with our forwards. Our priority would be to add another defenseman."
That defenseman is likely to be former Columbus blueliner Jack Johnson. DKPittsburghSports.com has learned that the Penguins have a deal in place for the 31-year-old.
In acquiring Buffalo's fourth-round pick next year, which can become a third under certain conditions, it seems Rutherford is starting to stockpile for the future. The Penguins now have eight picks in the 2019 draft, including multiple selections in the fourth and seventh rounds. They made just four picks at last weekend's draft in Dallas after dealing one of their two fifth-round picks to move up in the second to take Filip Hallander and they dealt their seventh-rounder to Vegas for the Knights' seventh-round pick next year.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Penguins development camp, UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex, June 27, 2018. - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS
