Hurricanes owner mocks Pittsburgh Penguins for Phil Kessel trade

Carolina Hurricanes owner Peter Karmanos, Jr., sat before the assembled media in Raleigh on Wednesday and was asked if he takes responsibility for the buyout of Alex Semin, whose bloated and ill-conceived deal was ended this week. 

“Ultimately, you have to take responsibility for everything, alright?” he said.

“I do not have to take responsibility for Pittsburgh signing Kessel, however.”

Oh, OK … wait, what the hell just happened?

First, Kessel was a trade acquisition for the Pittsburgh Penguins from the Toronto Maple Leafs in a move that was universally approved, especially because the Leafs retained salary. Second, it was GM Jim Rutherford, who served the Hurricanes for decades and helped Karmanos move the Whalers from Hartford to North Carolina, that made the Kessel trade.

Later in his press conference, Karmanos ended an answer about making hockey affordable for American players with an abrupt, inexplicable left turn to another criticism of the Penguins and Rutherford:

“Alright, now, Pittsburgh has no first-round picks anymore. 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, Alex Semin did,” he said, as Semin scored six goals. “And I don’t have to take credit for that.”

And then he went back to talking about the affordability of youth hockey.

Later, he was asked the difference between GM Ron Francis and Rutherford.

“Ron is far more inclusive, so he’s asking a lot of questions and I give him my opinion. I’m not going to second-guess him. 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,” he said.

“Ronnie is a no-nonsense guy when it comes to those kinds of contracts. And he’s not worried that he might get criticized if his team doesn’t do as well as people think it should. So he doesn’t panic when it comes to signing players or worrying about that kind of thing. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t make good signings, because he does. We have an outstanding working relationship.”

He also said the owners trying to sell the Penguins will “sell that team for between $700 and $800 million in Pittsburgh, and the cupboard will be pretty bare by that time.”

Here's the full press conference:

Peter Karmanos, Jr., made the Hockey Hall of Fame last week as a “builder” and we can see why: In just 18 minutes, he built a rivalry with Phil Kessel and the Penguins for next season.