Is Hextall Truly to Blame for the Penguins’ Present Plight?

I was mulling over our Penguins the other day when a thought popped into my head.

Is our present plight really all Ron Hextall’s fault? After all, there are lots of factors that can contribute to a team’s decline. Not all of them directly attributable to a GM’s performance.

I decided to take a look at the team the recently deposed exec inherited from Jim Rutherford when he was named general manager on February 9, 2021, and compare it to the team we have now.

For comparison’s sake, I eliminated fringe players and listed the 25 most prominent players for each team.

First up, the 2020-21 squad.

The first thing that jumps out at me is age. Only five of the players listed were age 30 and older, while 20 were in their 20s. Overall, we featured a really nice blend of youth and experience.

My second thought? This was a pretty darn good team. Following an embarrassing ouster at the hands of the 24^th-seed Canadiens in the bubble round of the playoffs the previous August, Rutherford had given the black-and-gold a vigorous overhaul during the offseason.

In particular, there was plenty of affordable forward depth on hand with the likes of Jared McCann, Brandon Tanev, Evan Rodrigues, Frédérick Gaudreau and Zach-Aston Reese. Indeed, the ZAR-Turbo-Teddy Blueger unit was rated as one of the best energy/shutdown lines in the NHL.

On the blue line, John Marino, Mike Matheson and Marcus Pettersson formed the hub of a promising and mobile young defense. Cody Ceci, a former first-round pick of the Senators, proved to be a solid addition. He and Matheson displayed good chemistry and gave the Pens an excellent third pairing. In fact, all the tandems were good.

The only glaring hole? Third-line center, which Hextall ably filled with his surprise deadline acquisition of veteran Jeff Carter.

While there was some work to be done at season’s end in the RFA/UFA realm, particularly among the depth forwards, and an expansion draft to prepare for, nothing seemed insurmountable.

Now fast forward to our present team.

As the old saying goes, a picture’s worth a thousand words. Or should I say, read ‘em and weep.

My first thought in scanning our current roster?

Dear Lord, what happened?

Again, our age jumps off the page…in a bad way. In stark contrast to the team Hextall inherited, 15 players on the list who finished the regular season were aged 30 and older, including five aged 35 and older.

Talk about aging over night!

Gone is the good young depth, especially up front. Partly a result of the disastrous decision to protect Carter in the aforementioned expansion draft at the expense of losing McCann and Tanev, not to mention allowing affordable and useful free agents like Gaudreau and Rodrigues to walk. In their stead, Hextall added comparative graybeards like Carter, Mikael Granlund and Nick Bonino (sorry Bones).

Likewise, the defense morphed from a mobile young bunch into an aging collection of plow horses, especially on the right side.

The verdict?

Hextall had his victories to be sure, most notably the deadline acquisitions of Carter (but not extending him) and scoring winger Rickard Rakell, and inking core players Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, Bryan Rust and Rakell to bargain-rate extensions (albeit ones laced with term and no-movement clauses). However, his moves to flesh out the supporting cast for the most part backfired while greatly accelerating the aging process and the team’s overall decline.