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Keeping Fleury was best decision Rutherford has made

5 min read

Who was it that said that the best trades are often the ones that you don’t make? Whoever said it could have been thinking of the trade that Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford didn’t make for Marc-Andre Fleury.

Pirates GM Neal Huntingon might disagree, but more on that in a minute.

Rutherford told the media gathered in Pittsburgh for the Eastern Conference Final that, if not for Fleury, they would be gathered in a different city. Fleury is the No. 1 reason the Penguins are still playing hockey.

Who knows how many good offers Rutherford received and turned down at the trading deadline? Maybe he wasn’t faced with any tough decisions because the offers weren’t that good.

Fleury was assumed to be on the trading block before the team, including Matt Murray, the rookie goaltender who had taken his job, had finished skating around with the Stanley Cup in San Jose last June.

But now what?

The assumption seems to be that the Penguins have no choice but to trade Fleury because of his salary, his age and the fact that the expansion Las Vegas Golden Knights will be raiding rosters this summer.

What if the Penguins win the Stanley Cup and Fleury is the goalie in all 16 wins? It would be his second Cup win in three trips to the finals as a starter.

He’s only 32. Lots of Hall of Fame goalies have played their best hockey in their mid-30s.

Murray had a great rookie year and kept his starting job during the regular season but he’s already shown himself to be less dependable than Fleury

Showing up is a big deal.

It’s a huge what if, but what if Fleury wins the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP? If the Penguins win the Stanley Cup – also still a big if – he would be the most likely winner.

Sorry, but age, salary cap, and who’s in line to take the job just shouldn’t be good enough reasons to trade the equivalent of a Super Bowl MVP quarterback.

You figure out a way to keep him.

As spectacularly successful as Murray has been as a rookie – and he is still a rookie, by the way – Rookie of the Year is a nice award but it doesn’t qualify as a track record.

Fleury, especially if he gets the Penguins to the Stanley Cup Final again, has a long and impressive track record.

As good as Murray was last year, Fleury has been even better. With Murray in goal during last year’s Cup run, the Penguins outshot their opponents in all but five games.

So far in this postseason, the Penguins have outshot their opponent once – the Columbus Blue Jackets in Game 3 of the first round.

I’ve believed all along that Fleury was the Penguins’ best goalie and also believe that he will be better than Murray three or four seasons from now.

That fits well into the Sidney Crosby-Evgeni Malkin window and could mean another Stanley Cup or two. This is not to diminish in any way what Murray has done or his potential.

If there is only room for one of them next season, not trading Fleury would be another good trade by Jim Rutherford.

• Now, about Neal Huntngton and the Pirates. He didn’t trade Andrew McCutchen at the trading deadline last year and he didn’t trade him in the offseason. Right now, that looks like a pretty good argument against that adage about the trades you don’t make.

McCutchen headed into the weekend hitting .210. That’s after being a .250-ish hitter since the end of the 2015 season. You might say his value has dropped a tad.

It’s dropped so much that, unless he gets extremely hot for the next 2 ½ months, McCutchen is going to be nothing but a salary dump and the Pirates might have to add some real value to the deal in order to fool a team into taking on his $14 million salary.

• The Anaheim Ducks could be playing in the Stanley Cup Final next month. If they are it won’t be a big deal to the citizens of Anaheim. The Ducks’ regular-season TV ratings of .25 are an embarrassment. The Penguins’ ratings are 25 times higher.

• The Penguins ratings are three times higher than the Ducks, Florida Panthers, Arizona Coyotes, Dallas Stars, New Jersey Devils and New York Islanders combined.

• Because of the Capitals’ pathetic postseason history, the revelation that Alex Ovechkin was playing with an injured knee and a pulled hamstring is being called a lame excuse.

Injuries are not excuses. They are factors that can determine outcomes. Because of the way injuries are hidden in the NHL, players with legitimate reasons for underperforming get a lot of unfair criticism.

Ask Sidney Crosby.

John Steigerwald writes a Sunday column for the Observer-Reporter.

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