Plenty of work remains for Penguins GM Jim Rutherford

Jim Rutherford filled one hole in his lineup Tuesday when he reacquired forward Kasperi Kapanen from the Maple Leafs.

If things go as planned — a dicey idiom in 2020 — Kapanen will line up next to either Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin in a top-six role whenever the 2020-21 season opens.

But what about the rest of the team, coaching staff included?

That remains a work in progress all of 19 days into the 2020 offseason.

Thankfully, the Penguins general manager still has 97 days to patch up the rest of his organization.

On Tuesday, Rutherford spoke by phone about a variety of subjects involving his team:

• The team has already staged interviews with candidates to fill the vacancies on its coaching staff. Assistant coaches Sergei Gonchar, Jacques Martin and Mark Recchi were jettisoned Aug. 10. Rutherford does not have a hard deadline to make any hires and wants to peruse the market of coaches who become available as the postseason progresses.

“No time frame,” Rutherford said. “But we’re past the first round of playoffs now. We’ll zero in on that a lot more at this point. We have been interviewing people and kind of have a gauge for what people could help the Penguins and help Mike Sullivan’s staff. We’ll zero in on it soon.”

• According to Cap Friendly, the Penguins have an estimated $9,171,492 of salary cap space available for the 2020-21 season. A potential buyout of a player would incur considerable penalties toward the team’s salary cap space and would essentially work against the goal of saving cap space.

Rutherford suggested any buyouts are unlikely but did not rule out the idea.

“That’s the fallback position, buyouts. If we have to get to that. I don’t believe we’ll have to get to it. But that’s the safeguard if we’re going to be over the cap.”

• Forwards Nick Bjugstad (back) and Dominik Simon (shoulder) are progressing as scheduled from surgeries they underwent in the spring. Neither player was available for the team’s postseason because of their ailments.

• Bjugstad has one year remaining on a contract with a salary cap hit of $4.1 million. A variety of injuries limited him to 13 games and two points (one goal, one assist) in 2019-20. Rutherford was ambiguous as to Bjugstad’s future with the team.

“With this back surgery, that’s going to help him from a health point of view,” Rutherford said. “It depends what players get moved out and whatnot. There’s a possibility for him still to be here. And there’s a possibility that he wouldn’t be.”

• Rutherford offered a hearty endorsement of oft-criticized defenseman Jack Johnson.

“I think he’s a solid third-pairing defenseman,” Rutherford said. “He kill penalties well for us. He blocks shots. He’s heavy down low. He’s one of the few heavy guys we’ve got. I think that’s he’s a lightning rod here. He gets criticized when it’s not necessarily his fault. Now, I’m not suggesting he’s the perfect player. Not many third pairing defensemen are. But what I’m suggesting is that’s it’s unfair. The criticism of him is a little over the top based on how he’s played when some of the times that he’s being criticized, when it was actually somebody else’s doing.”

Johnson will be entering the third year of a five-year contract with a salary cap hit of $3.25 million.

• Rutherford isn’t in a rush to square away his restricted free agents such as goaltenders Tristan Jarry and Matt Murray, forwards Jared McCann and Simon or defenseman Juuso Riikola.

“We’ll get to the point where we have to (extend qualifying offers to) those guys,” Rutherford said. “We’ll see where we’re at cap-wise and make decisions. Can we make them all fit? Or do we have to move somebody out? We still have another month or so to make that decision.”

Rutherford seemed to indicate the team is more than willing to retain Riikola. A native of Finland, Riikola was signed as an undrafted free agent in 2018 but has only played 73 NHL games in two seasons.

“He’s done a good job when he’s gone in,” Rutherford said. “I like him. I like him as a person and a player. Maybe this year, he gets more playing time and we can assess him a little more. But he’s a capable NHL player.”

• The team strengthened its pool of prospects on Friday when it signed Arizona State defenseman Josh Maniscalco to a three-year entry-level contract. Undrafted, Maniscalco opted to turn professional following his sophomore season of 2019-20 due in part to the coronavirus pandemic.

Rutherford said Mansicaclo was on the team’s radar for quite some time.

“We were on top of this a year ago,” Rutherford said. “He was identified as a potential prospect and we followed him real close. Actually communicated with him over the last year suggesting that he should maybe come out of school a year early. He was leaning towards staying in school and being the team captain. But with the unknown of college teams, whether they’re going to play or not (because of the coronavirus pandemic), it just came together that it makes sense that he turned pro a year early.”

Forward prospects Kasper Bjorkqvist (Finland) and Radim Zohorna (Czech Republic) have been loaned to professional teams in their native countries. Defensive prospect Jesper Lindgren, who the team acquired in the Kapanen transaction, was on loan to a team in Sweden before the trade happened.

With the NHL as well as the American Hockey League and ECHL not scheduled to open play before early December, the Penguins are looking to loan more of their prospects to teams in Europe as several leagues on that continent have already opened the preseason for 2020-21.

“We’re trying to get as many guys over there as we can so they can play,” Rutherford said. “It’s nice. Now, they’re already playing. I just talked Lingren, they already had two games. It’s better that these guys are already playing instead of sitting and waiting until December. So we like the idea of getting our guys over there and playing.”

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