Why Rutherford? Didn’t he retire?
he abruptly quit a week ago for personal reasons. you can spin a yarn from that which goes something like this.
if i was benning feeling the internal heat of being aquaman's hatchet man i would have been trying to recruit a likeable likeminded oldschool guy in his salad days like rutherford as president of hockey operations since the end of the playoffs.
if i was aquaman i would be surfing on benning on recruiting his own replacement because nobody in hockey would talk to me. i would also like rutherford as a guy with a reputation of being loved by his stars so as to try and mend fences with petey and hughes, because i think even aquaman realizes that the offseason has massively alienated the team. i would also assume he is old and pliable enough to maybe still get my way.
so, i actually think rutherford is a possibility. i would even speculate he has a cooling off period in his contract after he resigns which may have been the reason behind the sudden resignation so he can jump ship in, say, 2.5 months.
it's obviously wide open speculation.
as for whether benning deserves this, i still don't know. the ruthless shit he did in the offseason hdoes have a typical aquaman "get me shiny new toys every year" feel to it. it doesn't really matter though. he did it, and the team has turned on him for it, and i think petey is gone unless things change significantly or maybe just gone.
as for whether rutherford will work a cure, i doubt it, but maybe. he is old school hockey enough to put aquaman in his place and aquaman is very vulnerable right now, but he is also old school enough to go along what an owner wants. i believe what this town really needs is a gm or president who can freeze aquaman out of the decision process. that is probably unobtainable, and nobody smart enough to really try it would take the job here when they could take a job on another team with a less difficult owner. maybe petey can do it. i dunno.
