Williams: Penguins coaching position now toxic

Pittsburgh Penguins fans can only hope that as Sidney Crosby collected three awards on Tuesday he looked over at Los Angeles Kings captain Dustin Brown or Conn Smythe Trophy winner Justin Williams and thought, “I’d trade for what you have.”

When it comes to the NHL’s 82-game regular season that eliminates 14 of 30 teams, no one is better than Crosby, who won the Art Ross as regular-season scoring leader, Hart as regular-season MVP and Ted Lindsay as the players’ choice as most outstanding regular-season player.

Sadly, his postseason numbers of late are another story. And is anyone in the NHL more overpaid than teammate Evgeni Malkin?

The Penguins have tumbled from elite status; better days don’t appear to be on the horizon. Just 15 months ago, the Pens went unbeaten for an entire month. They were Eastern Conference favorites.

But that wasn’t good enough for General manager Ray Shero, who mortgaged the future by trading draft picks and prospects for rental players Jarome Iginla, Brenden Morrow and Douglas Murray. The gamble didn’t work.

Part of it was dumb luck. In the final game of March 2013, Crosby’s jaw was shattered by a deflected Brooks Orpik shot. The new Pens never had a chance to blend in with Crosby in the lineup. That lack of chemistry caught up to them in the Eastern Conference finals when they were swept (and humiliated) by the Boston Bruins.

This season, the Pens embarrassed themselves again by blowing a 3-1 lead against the New York Rangers in the second round of the playoffs. That ouster — their fifth straight by a lower-seeded team since winning the Stanley Cup in 2009 — cost Shero and eventually head coach Dan Bylsma their jobs.

Things haven’t gotten any better. First, owners Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle hired former Carolina Hurricanes general manager Jim Rutherford to replace Shero. Rutherford, a Penguins goalie in the ’70s, is 66 and only plans to hang around for a couple of years.

His hiring turned the Pens head coaching job from coveted to toxic. None of the coaches Rutherford chased (Kings assistant John Stevens, new Canucks head coach Willie Desjardins) were interested because chances are excellent that when Rutherford retires, his replacement will name a new head coach.

With time running out before the NHL Draft (Friday-Saturday) and free agency (Tuesday), the Pens finally named Bylsma’s successor on Wednesday: Mike Johnston. It is an underwhelming selection. For the past six years, Johnston has been head coach and general manager of a junior team — the Portland Winterhawks of the Western Hockey League. (The Youngstown Phantoms are a junior team.)

Johnston has NHL experience as an assistant with the Kings and Canucks, but he’s been out of the league for quite some time.

Rick Tocchet, one of the Pens’ top players from their 1992 championship team, will be Johnston’s top assistant. Tocchet was head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning for two seasons (2008-10) so that doesn’t hurt. But can he get Malkin to try and play defense?

The only thing that makes sense about this hiring is that the price is right — how much leverage can a junior hockey coach have? Barring a Stanley Cup victory next spring, Johnston will be easy to fire in two years when Mike Babcock’s contract with the Detroit Red Wings expires.

In the meantime, the Pens are in salary cap hell thanks to the huge contracts Shero gave to Malkin, James Neal, Chris Kunitz, Pascal Dupuis, Paul Martin and Rob Scuderi. Of the next season’s cap of $71.1 million, $56.1 million is going to just 14 players.

The forecast — a long winter is on the horizon.

Tom Williams is a sportswriter at The Vindicator. Write him at williams@vindy.com and follow him on twitter at @Williams_Vindy.