CRANBERRY, Pa. -- When the 38 prospects take to the Lemieux Sports Complex ice today for the opening of the Penguins' development camp, the forwards among them would do well to work on their lateral skating.
As in switching left to right, and vice versa.
Make no mistake: Bryan Rust became a much wealthier man Tuesday -- four years, $14 million -- because of what Mike Sullivan's long termed his 'Swiss Army knife' status. He can switch wings; he can function almost as seamlessly on the first line as on the fourth. He can kill penalties. And as a result, he solves problems. Just like a baseball manager's pet player is almost always the superutilityman, a hockey coach loves the guy whose number he can call when someone else goes down.
Good for Rust. He's a tireless, tear-it-from-the-heart two-time champion. He won't cheat his employer of a solitary penny.
But he'll also create, for a team that's seeking scoring balance, as Jim Rutherford reiterated this week, an imbalance of a different sort: The right side is absolutely loaded compared to the left.
Let's do some fake lines:
Jake Guentzel-Sidney Crosby-Patric Hornqvist
Carl Hagelin-Evgeni Malkin-Phil Kessel
Zach Aston-Reese-Derick Brassard-Daniel Sprong
Dominik Simon-Riley Sheahan-Bryan Rust
OK, don't start nitpicking. It's late June. All kinds of change could still come. But living in the present, what's above is at least a reasonable representation, and I'm purposely not including Conor Sheary because I'm increasingly convinced he'll be the cap casualty Rutherford was referencing this week.
Look at that right side. No matter their order, that's pretty powerful from top to bottom. If Rust's your No. 4, and he's scored 28 goals the past two seasons despite missing a total of 38 games, that's outstanding. And he might have to be No. 4, by the way, based on how Rutherford this week characterized Sprong needing to "play the right way to be part of the top nine." That sounded to me like Sprong would be in the press box rather than the fourth line.
Now, look at that left side. Guentzel is Guentzel, and that's great. Hagelin was terrific in the second half once he got his legs going, but he still wound up with 10 goals. Aston-Reese will be entering his first full season. And Simon, for all his little stuff Sullivan and teammates rightly admire, hasn't shown anything resembling an NHL finishing touch.
I asked Rutherford if all this was a worry.
"No, I don't think so," he replied. "We're obviously very strong on the right side. But Rust can switch sides, and we've got some other flexibility. I don't think it'll be a problem for us."
I'll respectfully differ, based on the roster in front of us. For one, I've never been wild about Rust on the left side. Yeah, he doesn't mind it -- he's told me that countless times -- and he's made his share of authoritative rushes and finished from that circle, but he's a less complete player on his off-wing, to be kind. For another, the skill is terribly tilted toward the right, which will make the Penguins far easier to defend strategically at five-on-five. An opposing coach needs to advise nothing more than extra focus on that side of the rink from his primary tracking-back winger, and the bonus clog alone becomes a barrier.
This is why I'm of the belief that Rutherford's beneath-his-breath goal, beyond adding a depth forward and depth defenseman, is to begin addressing this. Not by weakening the right side, clearly, but by strengthening or at least supporting the left.
• If the best the Penguins can do for the defense through free agency is Jack Johnson -- and it's a grisly group of which he might just be the most naturally gifted -- they should make the hardest of hard passes. Having one awfully overpaid, defensively reckless minus machine on the corps is plenty, and I'm talking, of course, about Matt Hunwick.
• The one free-agent defenseman I'd want is the one I'd deliberately omit from the above context, and that's Ian Cole. No chance he'll come back after the tough time he had with Sullivan. Which is too bad. He'd be perfect.
• If John Tavares were serious about prioritizing a Stanley Cup, he'd cut off all this NBA-style showboating of his free agency and sign this very morning with Tampa Bay or Winnipeg. But he won't. He'll do as almost all players do and listen to his agent -- in his case Pat Brisson -- preaching about all the money he'd be leaving on the table, and he'll choose the team that offers the biggest check. Which I've got to believe will be the Islanders, given their urgency to fill a brand new building back on Long Island.
• The prospect I'm most eagerly anticipating watching this afternoon will be the lanky center wearing the No. 16 sweater: Austin Lemieux. No, that's not to falsely inflate his chances of making it big, but it is to suggest there's a real joy in witnessing so much as a single strand of that DNA. And it's there. If you make it to the camp this week, watch for yourself.
• The Pirates' top offensive player this month won't be mentioned by a soul in Pittsburgh. That's because it's Gregory Polanco, and I'm betting he'll be a victim of Boehringer Syndrome all summer long. (Which I'll explain with the next bullet.)
Polanco's three hits, including two home runs, in the first two games of the ongoing series in New York have raised his June OPS — on-base plus slugging percentage, the very best measure for total offense, to .869, by far the highest on the roster. The next-highest among regulars is Colin Moran's .749.
In the old-school perspective, he fares just as well, having reached base safely 15 times in his past 28 plate appearances -- more than half the time -- while going 9 for 21 with three home runs, a double and seven walks.
Giving up on real talent is dumb in and of itself, but giving up on that talent when it's affordable and under team control for the next half-decade would be beyond dumb.
• As for Boehringer Syndrome, that's a term I whipped up a long time ago to describe when perception outlasts reality for far too long. It's named for Brian Boehringer, the largely unremarkable reliever for the Pirates in 2002-04 who got off to a rotten start one April, then settled in to a really nice groove all summer only to still get grief the whole time because of that start. It's either that no one could conceive of changing their minds, or that no one remembered anything but the Last Bad Thing they saw.
• Josh Harrison's passion, accompanied by real production, won't be easily replaced. Actually, it won't be replaced at all. There's no one else like him on the team. Not close.
• Charlie Morton struck out 13 Toronto batters last night in Houston. Afterward, A.J. Hinch, the manager of the World Series champs, referred to his Game 7 hero as "incredibly dominant."
I know, I know. Just sharing.
What's at least mildly amusing is that it's so over-the-top sometimes, all this stuff related to the local baseball club, that even Saturday Night Live sketch writers would reject it as implausible.
• A few spoken words on Le'Veon Bell's surprisingly stating that he and the Steelers might agree to a long-term contract:
• This might not seem a big deal now during the NFL's annual dead period, but the league has lost four full-time experienced referees this offseason, most recently Uniontown native Gene Steratore, whose performance was respected enough that he just worked the Super Bowl. The others: Ed 'Guns' Hochuli, Jeff Triplette and Terry McAulay.
And you'll never guess where they're going: Other than Hochuli, who's headed to help out our man Al Riveron in the replay booth, the rest are all being signed up by TV networks to become analysts. Because that's the new craze on football broadcasts, having someone there to immediately and very publicly embarrass the refs.
Hm. Can't imagine why they'd switch sides in that scenario.
• If you'll pardon me now, I'm going to help Gary Bettman craft his acceptance speech for the Hockey Hall of Fame, and I'm not sure how to open. With the three lockouts? With the national TV contract he landed with the hunting/fishing network? With the single most boring scoring period in the sport's history? No, wait, I know: How about the depression/suicides that have resulted from the league's ignoring concussions and his own denying the very bleeping existence of CTE?
Yeah, this might be a while.