CRANBERRY, Pa. -- The Penguins' addition of right-handed defenseman Jan Rutta on Wednesday was a curious choice at first glance.
Since last season ended, it was all but guaranteed the Penguins would end up trading a defenseman to shed some salary off their books. With P.O Joseph signing a two-year deal on Tuesday to solidify his graduation to the NHL, the Penguins were up to eight defensemen under contract for next season.
Rutta's three-year contract with an average annual value of $2.75 million brought that number to nine. That's way too many blue liners -- and too much money -- to carry around when there are needs up front.
Ron Hextall confirmed at least one of them will be on their way out.
"Well, we're certainly not going to have nine on our opening roster," he said when I asked if it was safe to assume that a defenseman will be moved. "So yeah, that's a fair assumption. I don't know where that's all going."
Originally, it seemed likely the Penguins would trade either Marcus Pettersson or Brian Dumoulin because they both play the left side, as does Joseph. The Rutta contract indicates John Marino could be in the mix as well.
Before looking further into the signing's implications for the rest of the defense, let's take a look at who the Penguins are getting in Rutta.
Here's a snapshot of Rutta's impacts over the last three seasons, courtesy of JFresh Hockey. You can read an explainer on the player card here.
JFresh Hockey
There are a couple things that stand out here. First off, don't expect Rutta to be filling the net. He scored six goals in the first 57 games of his career with the Blackhawks during the 2017-18 season. Since then, he's scored six goals in 181 games. Scoring goals as a defenseman tends to be wildly random unless you're someone like Cale Makar anyway, so that's not an issue in the slightest, especially for the role the Penguins will be utilizing him in.
Rutta's offensive impacts that had him as a roughly 25th percentile driver of offense among league blue liners last season is probably more in line with who he truly is than the above-average offensive impacts he had the previous two seasons. Again, not an issue for the role he'll play for the Penguins.
What drew Rutta to the Penguins is his size and defensive toolkit.
"We feel Jan is a really good penalty-killer," Hextall said. "He's a real solid guy to play with really any left-hander on our team. We feel like it's a good addition to our team, and we feel like we got better and added a little bit of the girth that we feel like we need in front of the net and penalty-killing situation. So we liked the add."
I've never clamored for size just for the sake of it, but anyone who says last season's defense corps wasn't susceptible to being exposed physically on occasion is fooling themself. Rutta addresses that.
Two of the last three seasons Rutta's defensive impacts have graded out comfortably above average. Although he's hardly a shutdown defensive presence, he has shown the ability to positively influence his team's ability to limit chances against throughout his career.
Rutta's raw, unadjusted on-ice metrics are a bit peculiar. In four of his six NHL seasons, Rutta's team has controlled more than 50% of the expected goals with him on the ice at five-on-five. In five of those seasons, his team has scored more than 50% of the goals with him on the ice. Team effects play a major role in the raw on-ice numbers, but that's a positive sign that he isn't getting caved in or heavily outscored.
The peculiar part is that Rutta's on-ice goals share at five-on-five has exceeded his on-ice expected goals share every single season of his career and, some seasons, the gap was significant. Instead of Rutta doing something that is leading his team to not only score at a higher rate than expected, but give up fewer goals than expected, it's likely he has benefitted from playing with high-end talent both at the forward position and in goal. This is reflected in his 92nd percentile quality of teammates over the last three seasons.
Even though Rutta was frequently paired with Victor Hedman, he averaged only the fifth-most ice-time per game (16:23) among Lightning defenders last season. During the playoffs that number dropped to an average ice-time of 13:07. It's also worth noting that he has played more than 35 games in a season just twice, and more than 57 games once, which was last season.
I went back and watched the majority of Rutta's shifts from this past Stanley Cup Final to get further insight on his game. What better team to analyze his game than the Avalanche?
I wouldn't go as far as saying Rutta moves around well, but for being 6-foot-2 and 211 pounds he definitely manages. He doesn't have a ton of foot-speed and his transitions can be a little clunky. He makes up for both with a forceful straight-ahead stride powered by the strength of his lower-body:
I found it encouraging that there isn't a lot of unnecessary movement in his skating or when he's carrying the puck. It's a sign he's playing within himself and not trying to do too much.
Rutta also makes up for his lack of foot-speed with his anticipation. It's a little bit of an issue when teams try and work the puck cross-ice on him when entering the zone, but he's pretty good at maintaining a close gap on the rush and knows how to goad puck-carriers to the outside. This frequently results in loss of possession for the opposition:
The same holds true in the neutral zone, where he can maintain a tight gap in one-on-one situations and keep the pressure up ice, preventing the puck from making it toward his own end as often:
In the defensive zone, Rutta spends most of his time hanging around the net, but he's willing to follow his checks up into the slot and along the boards to the point when necessary. That's a sign of confidence and trust in himself. Less skilled defenders, mainly the ones who have trouble skating, get nervous that they'll be exposed if they stray too far from their net. That often leads to confusion and mishaps in coverage.
Rutta's lack of quickness does prevent him from getting to a decent chunk of pucks that get rimmed around the boards in his own zone. If not for that blemish, his defensive impacts would be even better.
I'm sure Hextall is most excited about his ability to clear the front of the net. Outside of Dumoulin, the Penguins didn't have any defenders who could reliably take care of business in that department. Here's Rutta displaying that skill, surely preventing a high-danger chance:
The strength of Rutta's lower-body and base help him maintain his balance during net-front battles, races for loose pucks and when receiving body contact along the walls. This allows him to use his shoulders, arms and stick to get inside positioning on the opposition and gain possession, or create enough space for his teammates to corral the puck and get it up the ice:
As I noted earlier, Rutta doesn't really do much to influence his team's ability to create quality offense. He can make the easy and simple plays, but don't expect any sort of nifty passing or creativity.
Rutta rarely carries the puck into the offensive zone as he simply doesn't have the hands or offensive instinct to do so. The majority of the time you'll either see him defer to his partner on the entry or blast the puck deep as hard as he can. I mean, he really dumps the puck a lot, though there is purpose behind his placement. You will also see plenty of swatted pucks and chip plays off the boards in traffic. Under pressure with the puck on his stick, he prefers to get rid of it as soon as possible. This will result in wasted possessions every now and then.
Rutta almost reminds me of a stronger version of Cody Ceci.
And that's exactly why I think he might be a good partner for Mike Matheson.
Matheson could go rover while Rutta plays a stay-at-home sturdy defensive game. In theory, both complement the other's style.
So which right-handed defenseman gets bumped from the lineup? Hextall must have plans to trade Marino unless he simply isn't comfortable with Chad Ruhwedel on the third pairing, which wouldn't make a lot of sense because he absolutely crushed it as a lineup regular for the first time last season at a very cheap cap hit.
The problem with moving Marino is that he averaged around 20 minutes per game last season and that would be a massive role increase for Rutta. I think Rutta's game contains a couple aspects the Penguins needed, but it is concerning how infrequently he's played a full season over his career, and perhaps even more concerning that his ice-time was so diminished this past postseason.
It's tough to imagine the Penguins taking five right-handed defensemen into next season, even if one of them (Mark Friedman) plays the left side for the most part. It's equally as tough to imagine them not moving on from one of Dumoulin or Pettersson.
If nothing else, signing Rutta has given Hextall some room to get creative and have his choice of which defenseman, or possibly defensemen, will be on the move.
