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Plans for Matt Murray and Jack Johnson |
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The Penguins may not have any meaningful draft picks this year, but they may still make some noise at the upcoming draft. Rutherford is almost guaranteed to make a trade. For what? Who knows? Only thing I am willing to say with certainty is Matt Murray is the leader for likeliest Penguins going bye bye.
Jim Rutherford spoke to Josh Yohe of The Athletic this evening and gave some nuggets about the goalie situation
Murray and Tristan Jarry are scheduled to become restricted free agents.
“We’re going to give both of them qualifying offers,” Rutherford said. “That will be the first step.”
Rutherford was asked if there is a possibility — even a remote one — that Murray and Jarry will both be Penguins next season.
“Well, I guess there is a possibility,” he said. “Sure, there is a way we could do it. But to be honest, I just don’t think it’s something that would work for everybody.”
Yeah, Matt Murray will be gone the second Rutherford finds anything palatable. The market is rough right now, but I think Rutherford gave it the best sales job he could
“That’s true,” he said. “There are a lot of goalies out there. But let me ask this question: How many 26-year-old goalies who have won two Stanley Cups are available right now? There are a lot of goalies out there, and a lot of good ones. There’s no question about that. But those guys out there on the market haven’t done what Matt has done. To me, that’s the difference, and that’s why teams want him. That’s the way I’m looking at it moving forward.”
That’s the sales pitch you go with. All it takes is one general manager.
He also spoke about Jack Johnson. Either this is great news or we are in for quite a bottom pairing
“Dumoulin and Petterson are still young and aren’t going anywhere,” he said. “And obviously we like Matheson a great deal. He’ll play on the left side. So, that’s our left side. Those three. That’s it.”
“I like Jack,” he said. “We’ll see what happens. He won’t be on the top three on the left side if we’re healthy.”
So what about the… right side?
I just don’t know right now,” Rutherford said. “We are still working through what we’re going to do with Jack. Matheson being here changes things for Jack. So, maybe Jack can play on the right side. Or maybe he’s just going to be a depth guy for us. But Matheson is a younger guy who we really think needs to play.”
Like I said, this is either excellent news or we are in for another bottom pairing disaster. At least John Marino and Kris Letang won’t have to play with him. It does look like Johnson's role of playing 18 minutes a night is in the past. That is a relief
We should have some more roster answers in the coming days. Rutherford is in full blown trade mode.
Thanks for reading!
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