Quote:
Originally Posted by GranteedEV
People really don't give Guentzal, Kessel, Hagelin, Dumoulin, Daley, Sheary, Rust, Schultz, Bonino etc enough credit. The Pens under Rutherford specifically are a team that doesn't fill their ancillary roster with mediocrity, which as Brad Treliving has shown - is very easy to do. Now with the injury to Letang and more recently Schultz, have they needed Malkin and Crosby to be Malkin and Crosby? Yes, without a doubt. But when healthy they are truly impressive.
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I look at that list of players and actually agree with you on some points. Kessel, agreed not given enough credit, but he's also far from an ancillary role filler both in cost and role played on the team.
It's always interesting when this comes up, and I don't really know the answer. Have the Pens filled their ancillary roles well with the players they've chosen, or are the Pens simply in a position where there ancillary role players look better because their core is better thus: 1) elevates the play of the ancillary players that might get to play with the core 2) Pushes the ancillary players down more to their appropriate roster spot to be more effective 3) forces the opposition focus and energy to be spent much more on the core that it gives the ancillary less quality opposition focus?
How often do we see "player X" who we all thought was junk go to a team like the Pens and work out far better than their previous team? Same player, but far more effective on a better team, likely because one or all of the three factors above are working in their favour.
If we use Chaisson as an example. Lots of frustration with him when he, as an ancillary player, was given 1st line minutes with the Flames and not really working out. I bet if he was playing 1st line with Sid in Pittsburg, he'd have looked like a much better player than he did when playing with Johnny and Mony. Why, not because Rutherford would have been better at finding ancillary talent than BT, but because Rutherford's core talent is better.
Truth is it's probably a little bit of both, but we also can't discount that a GM with strong core and key players, doesn't need to fill as big of holes with ancillary talent as a GM with a less effective core does, and it makes their ancillary pick ups look better by default.