from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,
- There were no 100-point scorers in the NHL last season. Three players — Patrick Kane, Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin — are on pace to be well beyond 100 points. Kane is actually scoring at a rate 45% higher than last year’s scoring champion, Benn, who finished with 87 points.
- Jim Rutherford is 66 years old and is running out of hockey time.
He did Saturday what general managers always do when their teams are underperforming: He fired the coach.
Letting Mike Johnston go was obvious and probably overdue. What is in no way obvious now is what Rutherford does to make his Pittsburgh Penguins better.
He settled on Johnston, who wasn’t his first choice to coach. That didn’t work. He gambled on Phil Kessel; that hasn’t worked. And the club doesn’t have a first draft pick this year, didn’t have one last year, traded the player picked in 2014 for Kessel, didn’t have a 2013 first round choice, which happened before he got to Pittsburgh.
Meanwhile, the ex-GM Ray Shero is in New Jersey with an inferior roster and more points than his Pens, and the Devils have scored more goals than Pittsburgh, with all its elite scoring....
more on the Penguins plus other hockey notes...
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