Kukla's Korner Hockey

Kukla's Korner Hockey

Jim Rutherford And Mike Johnston Will Return In Pittsburgh

04/25/2015 at 2:43pm EDT

from Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review,

The Penguins aren't firing their coach or their general manager following a first-round exit in the Stanley Cup playoffs, president and CEO David Morehouse said Saturday.

“I know there's been a lot of speculation out there, but (co-owners) Ron (Burkle) and Mario (Lemieux) never once considered a change,” Morehouse said. “Jim Rutherford's our general manager, and Mike Johnston's our coach.”

Morehouse pointed to injuries as a major reason for the Penguins' struggles this season. They lost 371 man-games to injury and entered the postseason missing three of their top four defensemen in Kris Letang, Olli Maatta and Christian Ehrhoff.

“Look, we're all disappointed that we didn't go farther,” Morehouse said. “There are a lot of speculative reasons why that happened, but we have to look at reality.

“We had a new coach who almost never had a chance to coach his full team because of injuries. I don't know if there's a team in the league that could have succeeded in the playoffs without three of its top four defensemen. That's the situation we faced.”

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Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.

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