RALEIGH, N.C. -- On Monday morning, an NHL spokesperson told our site via email that the league's "policy is not to comment on plays for which it does not deem Supplemental Discipline necessary."
Respectfully, Jim Rutherford would beg to differ with that assessment of Robert Bortuzzo's crosscheck to the ribs of Evgeni Malkin in Saturday's game against the Blues that has left the Penguins' star center out of the lineup.
"I felt it should have been a penalty on the play," Rutherford told DKPittsburghSports.com Monday afternoon while waiting for the team charter to take off for Raleigh, N.C., where the Penguins will battle the Hurricanes on Tuesday night in the first of a four-game road trip. "It was a clear crosscheck on a guy that's hard to knock down. With that kind of use with his stick, when you knock a guy out and can't play for a week or two, I believe that's something that the Department of Player Safety should look at closer than they did look at it."
If Malkin is, indeed, out only for a "week or two," as Rutherford says, that would be a best-case scenario for the injury-riddled Penguins, who have nine regular-season games remaining before the start of the playoffs. Though they have a 98.7 chance for qualifying for the postseason, nothing is guaranteed.
The Penguins welcomed back Bryan Rust for Sunday night's overtime loss to the Flyers, but they still have a plethora of injuries, including those to defensemen Kris Letang, Olli Maatta, Chad Ruhwedel and forward Zach Aston-Reese. Despite all their assorted ailments, 189 man-games lost to date, the Penguins have gone 7-2-2 in their last 11.
Other than Ruhwedel, who has been out since Feb. 26, Rutherford believes there's a "good chance that all of the players that are presently injured could be ready for the start of the playoffs." Letang and Maatta both skated on their own Monday morning at the Lemieux Sports Complex. Letang will make the trip and is expected to return sooner rather than later after being out since Feb. 23 with an upper body injury.
Malkin is just the Penguins' latest injury and also their most problematic. It's difficult, if not impossible, to replace a two-time scoring champ who can dominate like few others when on top of his game. In his absence, Mike Sullivan has turned to rookie Teddy Blueger to center the second line. The center position was one of the areas that Rutherford upgraded prior to the trade deadline, acquiring Nick Bjugstad and Jared McCann from the Panthers in exchange for Riley Sheahan and the enigmatic Derick Brassard, along with draft picks.
"We have a lot of depth there," Rutherford was telling me. "Blueger did a good job. He's done a good job and did a good job last night. And, of course, we have all our other centers. We have McCann on the wing, who could go back to center if we want."
The other area that Rutherford addressed in-season was the team's defense, acquiring Marcus Pettersson for Daniel Sprong in November and Erik Gudbranson for Tanner Pearson last month. Pettersson and Gudbranson have since settled in as the Penguins' third pair. Even as Sullivan swapped the first two pairs during Sunday night's game, Pettersson and Gudbranson remained intact. Since the acquisition of Gudbranson, Sullivan has gone exclusively with three left-shot/right-shot pairings and Rutherford believes that might be the case moving forward.
"It would appear that would be the way that the coaches would go, to have guys play their natural side," Rutherford said.
Where that might leave Maatta, a left shot, or Zach Trotman, a righty, remains to be seen. But those are the difficult decisions that will have to be made at some point. In the meantime, one player who isn't likely to come out of the lineup is Gudbranson.
Rutherford was particularly effusive in his praise for the 6-foot-5, 217 pound blueliner. A former third overall pick, Gudbranson came to the Penguins with a less than stellar reputation but is looking to be one of the team's better reclamation projects. He is averaging 20:03 per game and has a career-best -- by far -- 56.3 Corsi For percentage.
"He's done a good job, probably more than what we expected from him," Rutherford was saying. "We were going to try and cut his minutes back a little bit and put him in a position to make it better for him to succeed. But he's played tough minutes and played very well. He's brought the leadership and character to our bench and dressing room. And, of course, he's a guy that can push back with players and teams that start to take advantage of us."
Exactly how this season ends for the Penguins is anyone's guess. They've shown at times they can keep up with the Caps, Bolts and Bruins in the Eastern Conference. But they've also been hampered by inconsistency and injury. Lately, Rutherford believes it's been more of a case of the latter during a busy March schedule that has his team playing 16 games in 31 days .
"I like our team," he says. "I'm really proud of our guys with what they've done here because a lot of teams wouldn't have gone through it with the key injuries and still stay very close in the race. So, I can't give you a full assessment because we haven't had a full team. After we made the necessary moves that were made, I think that our defense is really improved from the start of the year, and I think our center ice is much stronger. So that puts us in a much better position. I just give our guys a lot of credit for what they've done the last few weeks with the number of key injuries that we've had."
