When the Penguins raise their Stanley Cup banner Oct. 13 at Consol Energy Center, only defenseman Ben Lovejoy, forward Beau Bennett and backup goalie Jeff Zatkoff will be absent from the group responsible for such a magical season.
It's an impressive rate of retention for general manager Jim Rutherford and his staff, tangible evidence they're doing everything possible to correctly manage the NHL salary cap.
Of the 201 points the Penguins scored in the 2015-16 postseason, 97 percent of them are coming back. Zatkoff won one game, Bennett played one game, and all six points belonged to Lovejoy, a defensive defenseman.
A Pittsburgh Post-Gazette analysis found that 97 percent figure to be the second-best rate of retention since the 2004-05 lockout, trailing only the 2011-12 Los Angeles Kings. That team returned 98 percent of its playoff scoring the following season.
"To bring everyone back after you win the Stanley Cup is unusual with how the salary cap and contracts can be," Brandon Saad said Thursday at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex.
Saad would know.
He was a cap casualty last offseason after winning a pair of Cups with the Chicago Blackhawks, when they traded him to the Columbus Blue Jackets in a blockbuster, we-can't-afford-you deal.
"Whenever you're coming off a Cup run, teams are gunning for you, and it makes it a little bit tougher," Saad said. "It's always great to bring as many guys back as possible."
Repeating as Cup champions is next to impossible. Detroit was the last team to do it (1996-97, 1997-98), but those were uncapped seasons. Detroit retained about 95 percent of its scoring. Ironic: Goalie Mike Vernon was traded ahead of an expansion draft. Tragic: Defenseman Vladimir Konstantinov's career ended in a limousine crash.
Of the 11 capped teams studied _ 12 if you count these Penguins _ a 90-plus-percent retention rate led to, at minimum, a trip to the conference final the following season. Teams below 90 percent won one playoff series (2009-10 Penguins).
After signing forward Matt Cullen to a one-year deal worth $1 million Wednesday, Rutherford explained that Trevor-Daley-for-Lovejoy is essentially the only change for his team _ excluding, of course, their pursuit of Jimmy Vesey, an NHL-ready talent out of Harvard. Daley was hurt midway through the playoffs, and his return should be as seamless as returns get.
Other than that, there will be a bunch of familiar faces. And that's by design.
Rutherford and his staff struck early by extending the contracts of Bryan Rust, Scott Wilson and Tom Kuhnhackl at bargain-basement rates in mid-March. They're signed through next season with Rust making the most, a paltry $640,000.
That's what you have to do these days to create continuity, former general manager and current TSN/NHL Network analyst Craig Button said.
"There comes that point in time where you as an organization have to make an assessment on a player," he said. "You almost have to believe in the player before the player fully believes in himself. Put it this way: It's a lot easier for Bryan Rust to believe in himself now."
It's also a lot easier for Rutherford, Jason Botterill, Bill Guerin and Jason Karmanos to look like salary-cap magicians when they have players severely outplaying their contracts. It's one of the many reasons the Blackhawks have been so good for so long.
It's also a luxury that Rutherford did not have the last time he won the Cup. In 2006, the Carolina Hurricanes returned just 53.5 percent of their playoff scoring the following season, the worst in the post-lockout era by nearly 15 percent.
There is one key caveat: This study was done using the opening-night rosters for the following season. In Carolina's case, that excluded Cory Stillman, who did not play on opening night and scored only five goals in 2006-07. Same for Max Talbot of the Penguins in 2009. He was out with a shoulder injury.
But other Hurricanes veterans such as Mark Recchi (37) and Doug Weight (35), so instrumental in the Cup win, moved on, Recchi back to the Penguins, Weight to St. Louis.
That roster wasn't built like this one. Rutherford also no longer has budget constraints placed on him by ownership.
"I think that Jim Rutherford and the entire group in Pittsburgh has learned and benefited from their experiences of managing the cap," Button said. "I think the Pittsburgh Penguins are positioned quite nicely to be a real contender again next season."
