Penguins' front-office changes had been in works 'for a while' - TribLIVE

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Earlier this month, Jim Rutherford suggested he could be making changes to his front office.

“I’ve been looking at this for a while and talked to somebody about coming on board with us,” the Pittsburgh Penguins general manager suggested in an interview with the Tribune-Review on Oct. 3.

On Monday, that person ended up being former defenseman Trevor Daley, who returned to the organization as a hockey operations adviser. A member of the Penguins’ Stanley Cup championships in 2016 and ’17, Daley’s new role means his 16-year playing career has come to an end.

Daley’s return was preceded by the departure of another member of those championship teams. Earlier in the day, assistant general manager Jason Karmanos was fired.

Rutherford declined to comment on what led to Karmanos’ dismissal when reached by phone Monday.

Karmanos joined the Penguins as vice president of hockey operations in June 2014, roughly a week after Rutherford took over as general manager. In 2017, Karmanos was promoted to assistant general manager.

He also served as general manager of the organization’s American Hockey League affiliate, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, a position he took over as recently as Sept. 11 after his predecessor, Mike Vellucci, was promoted to an assistant coaching role with the NHL club Sept. 2.

Director of hockey research Sam Ventura will assume the assistant general manager duties on an interim basis, and Erik Heasley, manager of hockey operations, was named interim general manager of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.

With the NHL not scheduled to open the 2020-21 season until Jan. 1 at the earliest, Rutherford does not have a time frame to replace Karmanos.

“That’s a dangerous thing, to give myself a timetable,” Rutherford said. “So I’m not going to do that. But I’ll say I’ve been working on this for a while as to the direction that I’d like to go. … I don’t feel it has to be done immediately, but the sooner it gets done, the better that I’ll feel and the better ever body will feel.”

“I do feel comfortable with Sam Ventura and Erik Heasley. They do a very good job of what they do for us. They’re going to take on more of a role here on an interim basis to take on some of Jason’s duties. So I don’t feel pressure to have it done immediately. I’m going to get it done as soon as I can.”

Rutherford spent some time in recruiting Daley to return to Pittsburgh.

Having spent the past three seasons with the Detroit Red Wings, Daley, 37, was an unrestricted free agent this offseason. In his role, he will assist Rutherford in player evaluations at the NHL and AHL levels and act as an “eye in the sky” for the coaching staff during games.

“I told his agent a long time ago, shortly after he left his playing days with the Penguins, that he’d be a guy that I’d be interested in bringing into the front office some day,” Rutherford said. “When I heard that possibly he wasn’t going to play this year, we started that conversation again. Once Trevor had made the decision that he wasn’t going to play, then I told him that if he’s interesting in coming here, there’s a place with the Penguins.”

Said Daley in a video conference with local media: “This position that I’m getting into, because it’s coming from the Penguins organization, it just makes me feel so comfortable.”

“It feels so right. I’m excited about it. When I told my family, they were ecstatic about it. It just feels right.

“Leaving the game (as a player) is going to be tough, but this decision feels right.”

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Seth Rorabaugh is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Seth by email at srorabaugh@triblive.com or via Twitter .

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