With a stated goal of youth development and an underlying need for cost-cutting, the first day of July was supposed to be a relatively normal one for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Instead, trying to assemble a team that can cut the postseason mustard, general manager Jim Rutherford did some serious hot-dogging.

Leave it to the self-important press in Toronto to sensationalize the “bad” off-ice habits of a player who beat cancer and misses games about as often as the Toronto Maple Leafs make a Cup run. The Penguins were the real winners of the big-as-‘Jurassic-World’ (and way bigger than ‘Love Guru’) summer blockbuster that brought winger Phil Kessel to Pittsburgh, which, in turn, made them one of the NHL‘s biggest winners — or would that be “wieners?” — of 2015 free agency.

The Pens aren’t young enough, and organizationally, they aren’t deep enough, or at least that’s what recent playoff results have taught us. Giving up a presumed first-round draft pick is tough for a team that can ill afford to waste those, and it had to be sobering for Rutherford to say goodbye to Kasperi Kapanen, whom I remain convinced will play in the NHL this season. However, to the GM’s credit, the up-and-comers most important to their annual flirtation with Lord Stanley, mainly defensemen Olli Maatta and Derrick Pouliot, will still be in black and gold when that happens.

Besides, being a top-heavy team isn’t so bad when the top includes Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin and when you’re adding another in-his-prime star who is safely under contract. Looking at the amount of Kessel’s contract the Leafs were willing to eat makes this trade pretty hard not to like if you’re a Pens fan.

That is not to say doubts about Kessel’s character won’t linger until that first puck drops in Dallas on Oct. 8 and he gets a chance to start proving those doubters wrong. Former teammate Colby Armstrong was once one of Pittsburgh’s most popular players, largely because of his maverick, fan-oriented personality, but equally because of his grit, before he, too, became a focal point of one of the most significant trades of the Crosby-Malkin era. He openly questioned Kessel’s work ethic recently.

But he also called Kessel exactly what the numbers say he is: a goalscorer. He’s one of the best in the league over the last five years, in fact. The Penguins need someone who can spark Sid and Geno interchangeably, someone who can bolster their inexcusably stagnant power play, someone who can re-inflate those uncommonly low shooting percentages from the end of 2014-15, and, in summary, someone with a history of producing lots of offense during offensively challenging times for pro hockey.

Check, check, check and check.

Still, as nice as it’ll be for Pittsburghers to see Kessel in a Penguin uniform, it’ll be just as nice to see Blake Comeau and Paul Martin in different ones.

Although it’s a bummer to see the Pens cut ties with someone who meshed well with Malkin, the roughly $7 million Comeau will get in Colorado for the next three years seems outrageous. Martin was an outstanding ambassador to the franchise, but again, the Pens need to get younger, and they also need that money to keep their core talent together.

If KHL defector and NHL returnee Sergei Plotnikov can be, for the Penguins, analogous to what Korean import Jung-ho Kang has been for the local baseball team, Malkin need not worry. Nevertheless, when the Pens are healthy — which, admittedly, seems like a pipe dream anymore — the addition of Kessel gives head coach Mike Johnston options for his top six. Don’t be surprised if Tyler Biggs, one of the less conspicuous pieces of the Kessel trade, works his way into the bottom six, for that matter.

In the meantime, Kessel, until he demonstrates otherwise, is nothing more than a heavily scrutinized sniper burned out by Toronto’s dysfunction and needing a clean slate with a team better equipped to win sooner than later. He has it now.

I could judge Rutherford on what’s been said, but I’d rather judge him on what’s been done — redemption for not making his team tangibly better at last season’s trade deadline, and claiming one heck of a consolation prize for coming up short in the Brandon Saad sweepstakes.

Whether or not the Pens will “B” relevant next spring, he gets an “A” for effort this summer.

Matt Popchock is the Pittsburgh Penguins Beat Writer for Rant Sports. Follow him on Twitter @mpopchock.