Eulogy: Remembering the 2014-15 Pittsburgh Penguins

(Ed. Note: As the Stanley Cup Playoffs continue, we’re bound to lose some friends along the journey. We’ve asked for these losers, gone but not forgotten, to be eulogized by the people who knew the teams best: The bloggers and fans who hate them the most. Here are the self-loathing geniuses from THE PENSBLOG, fondly recalling their 2014-15 Pittsburgh Penguins. Again, this was not written by us. Also: This is a roast and you will be offended by it, so don’t take it so seriously.)

BY THE PENSBLOG

Good evening, ladies, gentlemen, females who identify as females, males who identify as males, females who identify as males, males who identify as females, lesbians, gays, transsexuals, bisexuals, white dudes, Katy Perry and Ryan Lambert.

We speak only for ourselves here today. Other Penguins fans can’t believe we “represent our fanbase.” We don’t. Start a blog and come take these eulogies from our cold dead hands.

Over the years, we’ve paid our respects to the Capitals, Rangers, Flyers and Bruins. When offered a eulogy this playoff year, we knew we would have a decision to make. We could make the same tired jokes about those four teams…or take a run at the team who hurts us the most: our very own Pittsburgh Penguins.

The decision process took a matter of moments, and so we stand here today attempting to decipher and explain what has gone wrong within the franchise and what may be in the near future.

We’ve put together a crack team of investigators and formed the Howard Baldwin Commission. We have found evidence throughout the Penguins’ front office and facilities that we believe can be directly connected to the wrongful death of the 2014-15 Pittsburgh Penguins, and we are presenting that evidence in this space with you today.

The first focus of the investigation was on the General Manager, Jim Rutherford.

Rutherford, who presumably was napping in a massage chair at Ross Park Mall at the time of our inquiry, was hired last summer and tasked with quickly rebuilding the Penguins’ horrific bottom six. Rutherford was initially identified as the primary suspect. Items we discovered in his office include:

Jason Botterill!

Poor guy. When Ray Shero was the General Manager of the Penguins, Botterill was his right-hand man lurking in the shadows. His job was to navigate the salary cap ceiling like Nik Wallenda, and he was a master. This past off-season, he went from the heir apparent for the GM job to having to actually compete with Pierre McGuire for the job.

Botterill was eventually given the title of “Associate General Manager of the Penguins,” along with Rutherford’s other henchmen, assistants Tom Fitzgerald and Bill Guerin. From Exhibit A, it appears Rutherford was not interested in his advice this season. From here, we see Botterill and the Penguins going their separate ways soon.

Oh, no. Once we saw Botterill tied up, we began to wonder how Rutherford went about staying under the cap ceiling, and that’s when we found his calculator.

It is the belief of this Commission that this calculator and cap mismanagement is why the Penguins had to play the final two weeks of the season facing the nightly question: dress a sixth defenseman, dress Evgeni Malkin, or watch “Matlock”? And it almost cost them a playoff berth…which everyone seems to have forgotten about already.

Exhibit C finally explains why the Penguins traded young defenseman Simon Despres to Anaheim for Ben “my D partner was Cam Fowler, so that means I’m as good as he is” Lovejoy at the trade deadline.

Lovejoy was the opposite of love and joy, one of the five defensemen dressing down the stretch, and every night was an episode of Fear Factor.

The evidence is mounting on Rutherford.

The Commission spotted this odd dartboard on the wall opposite of the window. For the uninformed, Pittsburgh journalist Rob Rossi did not appear to approve of the Penguins’ decision to let go Ray Shero and Dan Bylsma last summer. Throughout this past season, Rossi would take jabs at the Pens in his columns until it finally came to a head during the playoffs when he and Jim Rutherford had a dust-up.

Final investigation notes on Jim Rutherford:

Rutherford made the following moves:

– Acquired F Patric Hornqvist and F Nick Spaling from the Nashville Predators for F James Neal

– Signed D Christian Ehrhoff, F Blake Comeau and G Thomas Greiss to one-year contracts. Re-signed F Marcel Goc.

– Signed F Steve Downie to a one-year contract.

– Named Mark Recchi player development coach. Signed D Simon Despres to a two-year contract.

– Agreed to terms with F Nick Spaling on a two-year contract

– Signed G Marc-Andre Fleury to a four-year contract extension through the 2018-19 season.

– Acquired F David Perron for a 2015 first-round pick.

– Acquired F Max Lapierre from the St. Louis Blues for F Marcel Goc.

– Acquired D Ian Cole from St. Louis for D Robert Bortuzzo and a 2016 seventh-round draft pick. Acquired D Ben Lovejoy from Anaheim for D Simon Despres.

Now the Penguins are bringing back Rutherford in what could be the most important offseason in sports history. And time will tell if next season’s NHL draft lottery will also benefit older Pennsylvanians.

Ron Burkle’s Mansion

After wrapping up the investigation of Rutherford’s office, we flew coach out to Los Angeles to Penguins co-owner Ron Burkle’s mansion.

Researching Ron Burkle can take you to dark places on the Internet. And we mean that.

When we arrived, Burkle was out buying tight shirts, so again, unavailable.

Burkle, a more behind-the-scenes type of guy, was sent to the forefront recently after this explosive Mike Colligan report that he may be looking to sell the Penguins.

The goal of this Commission’s investigation was to see if we could kick up any evidence at all, and we found some interesting things in his home office:

In summary of Ron Burkle:

Burkle has been linked to the wrongful death of the 2014-15 Pittsburgh Penguins. The point here is what Mike Colligan dug up. Ron Burkle may actually be fleeing the crime scene, and now may be the best time to do it. Ron Burkle doesn’t know anything about hockey, but he knows all about making money. And the Penguins have made it for him. But with the risks ahead, how much is it really worth to him?

One has to wonder. If Burkle wants to sell – and he probably does – he is going to paint as clean a picture as possible. Therefore you can’t fire another coach and GM and pay them to not work. So, if you’ve pieced it together, the Penguins’ desire to sell is hurting their ability to actually get smart people in the positions where they need to be.

The Locker Room

Naturally, the Commission concludes its investigation in the Penguins’ locker room.

The president, CEO, and savior of hockey, David Morehouse, asked us to stop by his office real quick.

But he was too busy signing headshots of himself to himself to talk.

Apparently that is all he does, so we didn’t really feel a need to investigate him any further.

The Penguins locker room was quite the scene this season.

As soon as Crosby announced he would be playing for Team Canada at the World Championship, Canadians were forced to look past any shortcomings he had this season. But Crosby can’t hide from this Commission.

The most indicting moment for Crosby was this incident earlier this season against the Rangers:

In this investigation, the GIF is basically the Zapruder film. Penguins point to this incident as the moment when NHL officiating turned against the Penguins this season.

Chris Kunitz’s locker was next to Crosby – of course it is – but it was hard to find anything.

Par for the course for Kunitz.

Marc-Andre Fleury’s stall was about the only normal one.

David Perron’s stall hadn’t been used since February.

Beau Bennett was obviously looking forward to getting back to his game:

Something else:

Just as we expected, plenty of damning evidence.

Other evidence found:

– Trading for Daniel Winnik. Yes, the Penguins actually traded a second-round pick and a fourth-round pick for two months of Daniel Winnik.

– Speaking of bad trades, #JagrWatch happened again.

Okay, that was on us. And we’ll do it again next year.

– The Penguins almost caused a mumps outbreak at Children’s Hospital.

– Mike Johnson’s face every time an opponent scored.

We would have talked more about Mike Johnston, but no one really cares anymore.

To give you clown outsiders some perspective, the highlight of Mike Johnston’s season was this head nod and point he gave the home crowd during introductions on opening night.

– Craig Adams fought Evgeni Malkin in practice. Guess who won.

– The Penguins blaming their entire season on injuries. Granted, they had a ton of injuries. But when it came playoff time, the Pens played their best defensive hockey of the season. You may not have realized it, but the Pens’ four losses to the Rangers were all by a 2-1 score. Even with top-four defensemen Olli Maatta, Kris Letang and Christian Ehrhoff healthy and in the lineup, we don’t see the Penguins shutting out the Rangers or something insane like that. Pens needed goals from their moneymaking forwards in this series, and they didn’t get them. Again.

– Their record against the Metropolitan Division: 9-17-4

Advancing the investigation:

This Commission understands that using photoshops and not talking about advanced stats could be looked down upon. So we had Commission members Rich Miller and Jesse Marshall gather a list on players who may have misled fans. Their findings:

Rob Scuderi sucks, Brandon Sutter sucks, Nick Spaling sucks, and finally Beau Bennett fit the description of someone who didn’t suck, but he does in fact suck.

Conclusion

Much like the Penguins’ season, this investigation started off okay and then fizzled out. But we feel we’ve covered everything that needed to be covered. Unfortunately, this case has a lot of moving parts and hands involved. Despite mounting evidence against our suspects, it is the opinion of this Commission to suspend judgment of the Mike Johnston/Jim Rutherford era for another 12 months while we continue to gather more information. This case is considered open.

As we returned from the airport back to our poor, blue-collar, toothless, steel-less lives, it looks like the Pens may already be on the right track.