Apr 23, 2016 5 min read

How do you like Jim Rutherford now?

Remember this time last year when many were saying he was too old to be the Penguins’ general manager? Remember last December when they were saying the same thing and second-guessing his decision to bring Phil Kessel in from Toronto? He’s still 67 years old and his hair’s still gray. He and the coach he hired, Mike Johnston, got a raw deal last year when injuries destroyed the team and gave it no chance in the playoffs.

Rutherford decided to go with speed and the deals he made to bring in defenseman Trevor Daley and forward Carl Hagelin transformed the team.

And it took some guts to admit his mistake and fire Johnston and replace him with Mike Sullivan.

Let’s not forget Ray Shero, the former GM, who drafted and/or signed the young players like Conor Sheary, Bryan Rust, Tom Kuhnhackl and Matt Murray. There’s some question whether so many young players would have been given the chance if Johnston, instead of Sullivan, who coached them in Wilkes-Barre, had been the coach.

There’s a long way to go, but right now it appears that Rutherford has put together a team that has as much chance as any to win the Stanley Cup.

• Sheary looks like a future star.

In case you’ve missed him, he’s the 5-8 180-pound rookie right wing the Penguins have been using to torture opponents the last few months. When he first showed up during the regular season, maybe you figured he was just another Baby Penguin who was going to be taking lots of rides on the Wilkes-Barre-to-Pittsburgh express.

And you mighht have expected even less because of his size. Too small. He can’t last. But are smaller hockey players more likely to be hurt? Probably not.

Remember Martin St. Louis?

He’s the guy who helped the Rangers beat the Penguins in the playoffs two years ago. St. Louis is the same size as Sheary.

From 2002-03, when he was 27, until 2010-11, when he was 35, St. Louis missed two games. The next season, at 36, he played 77 games.

Along the way he won a scoring title, an MVP award and a Stanley Cup.

He played 74 games in his last season when he was 39 and scored 21 goals.

Sheary might not be on his way to the Hall of Fame like St. Louis, but he shouldn’t be underestimated because of his size.

Did I mention that Sheary set a record at UMass by playing in 133 consecutive games?

Sheary is ridiculously quick. That makes him hard to hit. Don’t be surprised if he’s around the NHL for a long time.

• It’s amazing how the Penguins being in the playoffs takes attention away from the Steelers and the NFL draft. In case you’ve forgotten, it’s Thursday night in prime time. For a team that went 10-6 and won a playoff game, the Steelers have a lot of needs, but the No. 1 need, at least based on the statistics from last year, would be on defense.

No team in the AFC gave up more passing yards.

And in the pass-happy NFL of 2015 that’s saying something.

The Steelers managed to do that despite only seeing a first-string quarterback for one quarter over a stretch of seven games.

After Russell Wilson of the Seahawks went 21 of 30 for 345 yards and five touchdowns in a Week 12 loss at Seattle, the only starter the Steelers’ defense faced for the next six weeks was Andy Dalton, who started for Cincinnati in Week 14 and left with an injured thumb after making a tackle following an interception in the first quarter.

I’m too tired to look it up, but I’ll bet there haven’t been too many seven-week stretches in Steelers history when they faced so many backup quarterbacks.

And they still managed to give up more yards than any team in the conference.

Despite only making the playoffs on a tiebreaker and getting a gift from the Bengals in the first round, the Steelers will be picked – and already have been picked – by a lot of experts to go to the Super Bowl. That’s because of the offense that will open training camp with a healthy Ben Roethlisberger, Le’Veon Bell and Antonio Brown.

But Heath Miller, Kelvin Beachum and Martavus Bryant won’t be there and that could mean the Steelers will be looking to find a tight end, a left tackle and/or a wide receiver in the draft who can help them right away.

• As I was watching the Florida Panthers and New York Islanders play in their second overtime Friday night, I found myself thinking I would be perfectly OK with the NHL going to 3-on-3 after the first overtime in the playoffs. That format in the regular season is the best overtime in sports. The tension and excitement in a playoff game would be excruciating.

• Pirates closer Mark Melancon earned a save in Arizona Friday night. It was the first time since 2011 that he was required to get four outs. Kent Tekulve, Dave Giusti and Elroy Face he ain’t.

John Steigerwald writes a Sunday column for the Observer-Reporter.