Phil Kessel

Hurricanes owner roasts former GM over Kessel trade

Published Jul. 2, 2015 12:03 p.m. ET

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It appears there is still some bad blood between Hurricanes owner Peter Karmanos and his former GM, Jim Rutherford.

Karmanos used a media session Wednesday to take shots at Rutherford, who was a general manager, president and part owner of the Hurricanes before stepping aside in 2014 and joining the Penguins as their new GM later that year. Rutherford and the Penguins made a splash Wednesday when they landed one of the biggest offensive stars in the NHL by trading for Phil Kessel, but Karmanos did not seem to be a big fan of the trade.

"Pittsburgh has no first-round picks anymore," Karmanos told reporters Wednesday. "They traded their first-round pick from the year before. They traded their first-round pick for this year, and now they’ve traded their first-round pick for next year. But they have Kessel, who may score as many goals as, uh, [former Hurricane] Alex Semin did. And I don’t have to take credit for that."

Semin was bought out by the Hurricanes after scoring just six goals during the 2014-15 season. Semin is a three-time 30-goal scorer, but he has not reached the 30-goal mark since 2009-10 when he was playing for the Capitals. In contrast, Kessel has scored at least 30 goals in five of his past seven seasons.

Karmanos also hinted that Rutherford tried to shortchange the Hurricanes by refusing to spend a lot of money on players during his tenure in Carolina.

"Ron is far more inclusive, so he’s asking a lot of questions and I give him my opinion," Karmanos said to reporters. "He’s far more astute on the financial end of the game. Jim liked to talk about the fact that we’re a ‘budget team.’ I’m not sure what that ever meant. Every team has a budget. That means we had a budget until Jim needed a player, then I’d say, ‘OK,’ and we had a different budget. Ronnie is a no-nonsense guy when it comes to those kinds of contracts. He’s not worried that he might get criticized if his team doesn’t do as well as people think it should."

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Karmanos then declined to speak to the newspaper to clarify his comments. Still, what Karmanos was willing to publicly say should make Penguins-Hurricanes games more interesting next season.

(h/t Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Photo credit: Dave Sandford/NHLI via Getty Images

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