Olli Maatta had just begun to work on the Pittsburgh Penguins top pairing, alongside Kris Letang, on a consistent basis, when he suffered the upper-body injury that will keep him out of the Penguins lineup for the next three to four weeks. With Maatta out, Pittsburgh GM Jim Rutherford is faced with the difficult proposition of filling a sizeable hole on a defensive corps that was already beyond leaky, performing well below expectations, even before Maatta went down.
And while top Penguins prospect Derrick Pouliot has been playing well with the team's AHL affiliate this season, it sounds like that's not the direction Rutherford is leaning at this point.
"We will be careful in the approach to his development," Rutherford said recently, via Dave Molinari of the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette. "He's certainly capable of coming up and playing well, but just from a confidence point of view and a development point of view ... he's come along real nice and he's playing well, but I would expect it's going to be somebody else."
Through 12 games with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, Pouliot, a first-round pick in the 2012 NHL Draft, has three goals and seven assists. He's also a plus-six.
But it seems, per Rutherford, the team will look elsewhere to find another replacement for Maatta's two goals and two assists.
Really, the biggest problem in all of this for the unsettled Pens, is that it pushes a player like Brian Dumoulin or Ian Cole back into a top role, where Cole especially struggled during the early portion of the season. With just six healthy blueliners, Rutherford will make an addition to Mike Johnston's defensive group, it just isn't likely to be Pouliot or, really, anyone that's going to inspire much confidence for Pens fans.
