Regrettably, there is some sad news to pass along. Yesterday, former Penguins General Manager Ray Shero passed away.
If it came as a surprise, because it was.
And not a day goes by that he doesn’t think of Shero, who died in Arizona after a brief illness, according to Minnesota Wild GM Bill Guerin.
Bylsma was among those who didn’t know Shero was sick until after he died.
“Not many people knew how ill he was,” Bylsma said. “Only a couple of family members and a couple of friends. That was it. From what I hear, that’s what Ray wanted. He had this huge circle because everyone loved Ray. But only a handful of people knew. I am absolutely devastated.”
When Ray Shero was hired he was tasked with modernizing the entire Penguins operation. Craig Patrick, who he was taking over for, was very old school in how things were operating. Everything was still phone based. Shero had to get the offices and and everything up to speed via the internet. It’s funny to look back on that being a huge undertaking, but the Penguins were operating in an analog age before Shero got them into the proper digital workspace.
Shero was hired on May 25th in 2006. He inherited Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, and Marc-Andre Fleury. The task was pretty clear. Win the Stanley Cup with the best 1-2 center punch the league had to offer. So let’s go through some of the moves Ray was able to pull off over his eight years in charge of the Penguins.
His first major move was using the second overall selection in the 2006 draft on Jordan Staal. The best 1-2 center combo turned into the best 1-2-3 center punch in the NHL.
He hired Patrik Allvin as a European scout. Allvin worked his way up the ranks in Pittsburgh to interim GM and then ultimately landed his current role, Vancouver Canucks General Manager
He was indirectly responsible for the What Would Gary Roberts do movement. He acquired Gary Roberts in February of 2007 as the Penguins were on their way to making a return to the playoffs after going through some really low times.
Shero was the GM who was able to lock in both Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin into their long term deals which would keep them with the franchise who drafted them.
The first big swing of Shero’s tenure was the Marian Hossa trade. It was a bold move and it paid dividends. Even though Hossa ultimately was a rental he played great for the Penguins and they found their way to the Stanley Cup Final, two games away from winning it all. A nice consolation prize was picking up Pascal Dupuis as a throw-in on the deal. Dupuis of course went on to have very successful seasons alongside Sidney Crosby and Chris Kunitz.
Reflecting back on it, Shero had Thrashers GM Don Waddell on one phone, another GM on another phone with a potential deal in the works, and Mario Lemieux on his cell phone. “I said to Mario, here’s the deal – we can do the Hossa thing, and I gotta tell ya, it’s a risk because of the assets and there is no guarantee this kid is going to stay,” Shero recounted in that same interview.
“I still remember Mario saying, look, I bought this team out of bankruptcy with Ron (Burkle), and I’m a risk taker. If you think hockey-wise, it’s a good move, I support it. Okay! Don, we got a deal. That’s the way Mario always was, and it was fantastic.”
Shero hired a relatively unknown coach to take over the team in WB/S. That coach was Dan Bylsma and on February 15, 2009 he was promoted as interim head coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins replacing Michael Therrien. The team was floundering at the time and after the coaching change things drastically changed. We know how the 2009 season ended and a big reason was Shero’s decisions managing the coaching situation.
Other variables from that year included two pretty big trades. The first one was landing Chris Kunitz from the Anaheim Ducks in exchange for Ryan Whitney. Kunitz was one of the most consistent and productive wingers in Sidney Crosby’s career and a huge part of that era of Penguins hockey. The other trade was bringing in Bill Guerin who provided veteran leadership and mentorship for Sidney Crosby. Instead of being hesitant after Hossa left Shero stayed assertive making the team better.
In 2010 he drafted Bryan Rust in the third round. Rust has exceeded all expectations and is still playing great hockey for the Penguins.
In the summer of 2010 he signed both Paul Martin and Zbynek Michalek to long term deals. Paul Martin was one of the best Penguins defenseman of the era despite early narratives to the contrary. There was disappointment surrounding the signings, which ultimately led to Michalek being traded to Arizona, but they were misguided. The pairing had a 52.41 xGF% in the first year. Shero mindful of the criticism reached out to Paul Martin to ask him if he was still comfortable being with the Penguins and if he needed a change of scenery. Martin said he did not and the results speak for themselves. The criticism was always completely bogus
Paul Martin was one of the better UFA signings of the Crosby/Malkin era
The next big trade Shero made was acquiring James Neal and Matt Niskanen for Alex Goligoski. Neal went on to have a 40 goal season with Malkin who was able to win the Art Ross and Hart Trophy that season. Neal had a .45 goals per game average in Pittsburgh which was the highest of any team he played for. Niskanen went on to be a quality mid-pairing defenseman for the team with a reasonable cap hit.
He re-acquired Penguins star Alexei Kovalev. Yeah, Kovalev was pretty washed at this time, but this was the year both Crosby and Malkin were out for the year. It was nice to see a familiar face in what was a lost season.
Shero shored up the goaltending situation by adding Tomas Vokoun for a 7th round pick. If not for blood clots the Penguins might have gotten a few more years out of Vokoun at a low cap hit with solid results.
Despite having no leverage with Jordan Staal making it clear he was going to leave to play with his brother in Carolina, Shero was able to get Jim Rutherford to buck up and give the Penguins the 8th overall pick in the 2012 draft, Brian Dumoulin, and Brandon Sutter. While Pouliot was a bust getting a top ten pick was a good piece of business. Brian Dumoulin ended up being a trusted partner for Kris Letang for many years.
Also in the 2012 draft Shero drafted a netminder by the name of Matt Murray.
In 2013 during the lockout shortened season Shero made a few trades to load up for the playoff run. One of those trades was acquiring Brendan Morrow. One glossed over part of the Morrow trade was that the Penguins also picked up a 3rd round pick from Dallas. That third round pick… was Jake Guentzel.
Shero’s last haymaker was acquiring Jarome Iginla in the middle of the night which had Penguins fans waking up to quite the surprise in the morning. While Iginla’s deployment didn’t match what the public perception wanted he was still a quality addition to the team. He finished with a 2.21 points per 60 at 5v5 in the playoff push in addition to the 11 points in 13 games in the regular season.
At this point the Penguins had failed to win a game in the Eastern Conference Finals since 2009 when they won the Cup. Fleury’s goaltending and injuries to Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin led the way as legit reasons for this, but ultimately the responsibility of a franchise falls on the GM and Shero was let go on May 16, 2014.
Shero’s first move as GM was re-signing Micki Dupont while his last move was signing Bryan Rust and Scott Wilson to ELC deals. What he will be remembered for in Pittsburgh were the ultra-competitive years in-between and all the good moves mentioned above.
Ray Shero was an integral part of our Penguins journey during this wonderful era and we are still reaping the benefits of some of that work with Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang still together as a trio. I join the rest of the hockey community in mourning Ray’s passing. Thank you for all the contributions both on and off the ice. It was certainly a great time to be a Penguins fan. Rest in peace.
Thanks for reading!
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