Among NHL general managers, only Toronto’s Lou Lamoriello — who’s 75 — is older than Jim Rutherford, 69.
“I had no idea,” Penguins president/CEO David Morehouse said when I brought it up late Monday night following a 4-3 overtime victory over the Calgary Flames.
The list of those better than Rutherford right now might be shorter, which is the real reason I ended up speaking with Morehouse outside of the Penguins dressing room.
I had been told by numerous people within the organization that Rutherford was the one who had the foresight to conceptualize and work to complete the Derick Brassard deal, a unique transaction that was easily one of the funkiest of Rutherford’s long and successful career.