Mark Madden: Penguins GM Jim Rutherford?s deadline deals unlikely to matter muc

Posted by smrtsmith on March 29th, 2019

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Every time the NHL trade deadline comes on the scene, Penguins fans want the group to trade for Ron Francis again. Like in 1991.
That’s speaking metaphorically. But local hockey nostalgia holds that your blockbuster trade is usually a harbinger for winning a Stanley Cup, especially because it happened again your next year, 1992, with Madden Overdrive Coins Rick Tocchet. (More recent Cups have generated another sort of nostalgia: “H-B-K! H-B-K!” along with the idea that Ian Cole is irreplaceable.)
What GM Jim Rutherford did on the NHL trade deadline, however, didn’t bust any blocks. He made two minor deals that likely will prove inconsequential.
Let’s hope, anyway. Defenseman Chris Wideman got sent for the Penguins’ minor league affiliate at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton immediately upon acquisition from Florida, and that’s with Kris Letang, Brian Dumoulin and Olli Maatta all hurt.
A cholera epidemic likely mmoah.com will be required to press Wideman into NHL duty.
But getting defenseman Erik Gudbranson from Vancouver isn’t prone to result in bouquets being strewn at Rutherford’s feet. Not initially, certainly.
Gudbranson has got the NHL’s worst plus/minus at minus-27. If you’re not enamored of the stat, Gudbranson’s advanced metrics also stink.