Part 2: Rutherford seeks more locker room leadership

Jim Rutherford can do the math.

He knows that it takes 16 victories to win a Stanley Cup.

He also realizes that the Penguins came up precisely 16 victories short of a championship in 2018-19.

Even so, after witnessing a postseason during which high seeds and top contenders vanished faster than props in a David Copperfield magic show, Rutherford is to be forgiven for believing that his team had – and squandered – a stellar opportunity to claim the franchise’s sixth title.

“We can say what some other teams are saying now,” Rutherford said over weekend in his PPG Paints Arena office. “We had a good enough team to win this year, but the pieces didn’t fall into place at the right time. We had the…