After officially trading Daniel Sprong to the Anaheim Ducks in a one-for-one deal that brought in Marcus Pettersson, a fellow young NHLer trying to carve out a permanent roster spot, general manager Jim Rutherford had an interesting note about the newly acquired Penguin in his post-trade media availability:
“I don’t want to put a timeframe on it, but in a year or two, we believe he can be a ‘Brian Dumoulin’ kind of player. And I’ll take a lot of those kinds of defensemen on my team.”
Most were sort of taken aback by this statement considering the blueline, in its current state, is lacking any sort of true spark besides Kris Letang’s consistent play this season.