BRADENTON, Fla. -- Funny how a script can flip.
Nearly a month ago at PPG Paints Arena, the Penguins had slashed up the Wild, 7-1, a massive embarrassment for Bill Guerin making his homecoming, for Bruce Boudreau hilariously making out the wrong lineup card and for everyone on the Minnesota side. And minutes after it was done, I couldn't help but notice -- and reported -- that Jim Rutherford and Guerin were walking side-by-side toward the locker rooms, as they'd done for so many years, before Rutherford asked Guerin to step into an office space.
One can only imagine the conversation that ensued between the venerable Hall of Famer and with his vulnerable former protege: 'So, Billy, my boy, that team of yours ... whoa! Good luck with that, huh? Might take you a decade to fix all that up! Hey, anything I can do to help out? Y'know, for old time's sake?'
I'm kidding, of course. As I wrote then, one can pretty much be certain they were talking about a Jason Zucker trade.
Well, fast-forward, and here we are. Only in a far different setting, a far different circumstance.
Late Monday night, that trade, as we all know by now, was consummated: Zucker to Pittsburgh for Alex Galchenyuk, top defense prospect Calen Addison and the Penguins' first-round pick in the 2020 NHL Draft if they make the Stanley Cup playoffs this spring, one that pushes back to 2021 if they don't.
There are a lot of layers to digest, then discuss. I'll get to that myself in a bit, and we'll all have time aplenty to do so over the coming weeks, months, if not years.
But my immediate impression was, again, nothing more than that this was a far different setting, a far different circumstance than the one I'd witnessed nearly a month ago.
That Wild game, as I was citing all through the Penguins' just-completed two-game swing down here through Florida, marked the last time they'd performed at their peak. Or anywhere near it. Sure, they've won five of the eight games since, but they've also relied way too heavily on Tristan Jarry and Matt Murray, they've conceded more odd-man breaks in that span than they had the previous two months and, maybe most concerning, they'd stopped applying pressure in the attacking zone.
They were running on 'E' across Alligator Alley, and that's a perilous place to be without a gas station for 100 miles in either direction.
They were finally, finally feeling the effects of all those injuries, notably that of Jake Guentzel, and the resultant impact of what Kris Letang's correctly called their 'demanding way to play' that's been mandated by missing so many stars. Even poor Brandon Tanev's looking low on fuel.
They were left with nowhere to turn, as I'd never been more convinced than after their 3-2 victory, of all things, over the Panthers in Sunrise, a performance I'd rate as their second-worst all season behind only the opening debacle against the Sabres.
So, Rutherford was left with nowhere to turn.
And that, my friends, is no formula for making a fair trade, never mind a winner.
I don't like this trade. And if I could wrap Rutherford in Wonder Woman's lasso for the truth, I'll bet he doesn't, either. Not this far ahead of the NHL's trade deadline, still two full weeks away. Not in this form, with the loss of a first-rounder now ensuring the Penguins won't pick at all until the third round this summer. And definitely not with the path that preceded it.
Let's remember, to the latter count, that Galchenyuk came for Phil Kessel, one for one, contract for contract, from the Coyotes. And that seemed wonderful, if only because Kessel's welcome had long since worn out with Mike Sullivan but also because Kessel's cap hit extended two years beyond Galchenyuk's, which is up this summer. It felt safe. If Galchenyuk was good, the Penguins could try to keep him. If he wasn't, they'd let him walk.
He only needed to be ... oh, not a bleeping disaster.
Which, as we all know, he was. Just an awful fit, as an east-west, all-over-creation player trying -- and he did at least try -- for Sullivan's north-south system. He'd go several shifts at a time without so much as sniffing the puck.
So when Galchenyuk logged all of eight total minutes on the two games here in Florida, none at all in the third period in Sunrise, Rutherford unquestionably felt additional pressure to move. Not so much because of Galchenyuk himself, but because the fourth line as a whole had become a collective drag -- most recently including Anthony Angello and Sam Lafferty -- that Sullivan had his own back against the wall in deploying his first three lines to death.
And with that, the pressure to move now outweighed the patience needed to see what else the trade market might offer, possibly a superior scoring forward -- Chris Kreider, Mike Hoffman, Rickard Rakell, who knows? -- that teams might be keeping at present because they still see themselves in contention.
So no, I don't like this trade. I don't like sending out a first-rounder, much less a defense prospect in Addison who, though under-sized, was enjoying a real rise this winter ... for a 28-year-old winger whose career average of 0.5 points per game hardly replaces the scoring lost in Guentzel's absence.
That doesn't make sense for this season, given that someone better could have been had for a first-rounder and a top prospect, and it definitely doesn't make sense for the future of a franchise that's continually cool with mortgaging that away.
Ideally, the Kessel trade would have been safer than we'd thought, meaning he wouldn't have vetoed it when Rutherford tried to trade him straight-up to Minnesota for Zucker last summer.
Ideally, the Penguins wouldn't have been besieged by injuries, chiefly the scary, serious one to their top goal-scorer.
Ideally, they'd have waited deeper into February, closer to the deadline, to fall into their first real funk.
But the only facet of this bizarre season that's been ideal has been the 34-15-5 record they'll carry with pride into their game back home Tuesday against the Lightning. And in its own way, that, too, comes with pressure on Rutherford. Because for all the commitment to structure and work ethic, for all the bounces that've gone their way, the underlying reason for this success remains that the decade-plus core of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Letang just never ages, as our David Golebiewski artfully illustrated the other day. Those three matter as much now as they ever have.
Rutherford realizes that, just as he realizes it won't last forever.
So he made his move. And if I don't like it, that doesn't mean I don't get it.
Zucker's a fine hockey player. None of the negativity above is any reflection on him. He's blessed with world-class wheels, better hands than most might know, and he didn't pop 33 goals a couple seasons ago by accident. The speed and skill are as real as the resume:
He's also got every trait to suggest he'll fit in the Sullivan system, and that's genuinely paramount with how the team's taken to it.
“We like his speed, his two-way play, his shot,” Rutherford told our Dave Molinari late Monday night. “We like his all-around play.”
Wonderful. Here's hoping he arrives in Pittsburgh in time for this game and that he skates alongside Crosby. Bless Jared McCann, but he wasn't working out there, and he might be best bumping back to center, anyway.
Zucker will fit. And he'll surely help. But the price to acquire him came at a scale no one could've conceived a short while back.
Let's see where the script takes us next.
