Hiring Ron Hextall as general manager isn't the first time the Penguins have turned to their most bitter rivals for help.
In fact, they made a habit of it in the mid- to late 1970s.
They can only hope that Hextall does more for the franchise than the likes of Ed Van Impe, Dave Schultz, Ross Lonsberry, Orest Kindrachuk, Tom Bladon and Bobby Taylor, with a couple of exceptions, managed to.
And there's reason to believe that he will.
Possibly by a lot.
That's partly because so many of the Flyers retreads and rejects from four-plus decades ago had outlived their usefulness before they crossed the Commonwealth, and partly because the most impressive entries on Hextall's resume -- the ones that came after he swapped his goalie's blocker for a briefcase, anyway -- deal with issues this franchise will be facing in the near future.
Precisely when the Penguins will have to undergo a significant rebuild -- something Hextall executed deftly as an assistant GM in Los Angeles and a GM in Philadelphia -- has yet to be determined, but there definitely is one looming.
Could be in a few months.
Could be in a few years.
What Hextall -- along with his new tag-team partner, president of hockey operations Brian Burke -- sees from the Penguins when he begins to watch them on a regular basis will dictate that.
But until then, Hextall made it clear Tuesday that he is embracing ownership's win-now credo, much as his predecessor, Jim Rutherford, did.
"What we're looking to do is to make the Pittsburgh Penguins the best team we can this year," he said. "We'll see where it goes. We'll see how good we are. We'll see how our players respond, and we'll address things as we go along. ... You've obviously always got to look at the future, but you have to look at the present. The focus right now is on making the Pittsburgh Penguins the best we can right now."
Hextall's perspective is shared by Burke, who was serving as a TV analyst in Canada after GM stints in Hartford, Anaheim, Toronto and Vancouver, as well as a run as president of hockey operations in Calgary. Not to mention the time he spent as an executive vice president of the NHL.
"When you've got pieces like the Pittsburgh Penguins have, you've got to think, 'As long as we have those pieces, we have to try to win,' " Burke said, adding that "I think Sid (Crosby) is the best player I've ever had, and I've had guys who are in the Hall of Fame."
Their staff will include Patrik Allvin, who served as interim GM after Rutherford abruptly resigned last month and will return to his role as assistant GM.
Penguins president and CEO David Morehouse had recruited Burke to assist in the search for Rutherford's successor before concluding, with an assist from co-owner Mario Lemieux, that Burke should be added to the organization.
"I was talking to Mario about Ron, and he said, 'Burkie. How about Burkie?' " Morehouse said.
He described Hextall and Burke as "two of the greatest minds in hockey," then proceeded to set the expectations bar about as high as possible for the people in positions of authority.
"They're the two, along with Coach (Mike) Sullivan, who are going to take us in the direction we're used to being taken," he said. "Nothing's changed."
Morehouse didn't need to mention that that direction points straight down the Boulevard of the Allies, the preferred route for Stanley Cup parades in this town.
Morehouse said the Penguins created the position Burke will fill, which fits between the GM and team president on the front office depth chart, because "it falls into our philosophy of getting the best talent we can, whether it be on the ice or off the ice or on the business end.
"It's not so much the structure; it's the people. We didn't have our mind made up that we were going to have any kind of different structure when we started this search."
The division of labor between Hextall and Burke apparently hasn't been decided, and the line between their positions might be blurred much of the time.
"A general manager's job nowadays is an enormous undertaking," said Hextall, who has been serving as an advisor in Los Angeles. "To have other people to help you and guide you and work with you ... (Burke) and I are going to be a team. We're going to work together. ... He's going to take things off of my plate, and I'm going to take things off of his plate. I think we're going to have a terrific working relationship."
Their most immediate concern figures to be what personnel moves, if any, are needed to give the Penguins the best chance for maximum success in 2021. For now, they profess to be mostly impressed by their roster.
"We like our team right now," Hextall said. "Are there a couple of areas we would like to improve? Of course. Every team has areas where, 'Oh we'd like to be a little better here, a little deeper here.' "
This will be the first time Hextall has been charged with keeping a club at -- or returning it to -- the level of being a serious contender, which the Penguins hope to be while Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and Crosby remain on the payroll.
With the Kings and Flyers, Hextall's mandate had more of a long-term component, and his work with the Kings helped to construct a team that won two Cups.
Hextall, though, said he's capable of more than just executing a long-term plan to rejuvenate a lineup that's lean on talent.
"I'm not a one-trick pony," Hextall said, acknowledging that "this situation I'm coming into now is certainly different than the one we took over in LA, or in Philadelphia."
During his half-decade with the Flyers, Hextall drafted the likes of Carter Hart, Ivan Provorov, Travis Konecny, Travis Sanheim, Joel Farabee and Oskar Lindblom, fixtures in Philadelphia's lineup these days. That's not to suggest that his decision-making was flawless, but his fingerprints are all over the team that has a real chance to finish first in the East Division.
The patience Hextall showed while upgrading the Flyers' roster might have cost him his job in Philadelphia, however, because upper management reportedly wanted him to be more aggressive in making trades.
Perhaps even as aggressive as he was during his time as a goaltender. Hextall, a ferocious competitor in his playing days, might be best-known by his new franchise's fan base for once chasing Penguins forward Rob Brown around the ice after Brown scored on him.
"We're going to harness that competitive fire, from the other side of the ice," Morehouse said. "I think the fans in Pittsburgh are going to take to Ron. Having him on our side of the ice is going to be much better than having him on the other side of the ice."
Mind you, this is not the first time Hextall has had ties to the Penguins. His father, Bryan Hextall, was a center here in the early years after the 1967 expansion, and Hextall said he once got a mask and skates from a goalie who was one of his dad's teammates.
Fellow named Jim Rutherford.
"He was my biggest idol when I was a child," Hextall said.
In those days, simply qualifying for the Stanley Cup playoffs was a major accomplishment for the Penguins. Attaining that modest objective doesn't satisfy anyone anymore.
"We're the Pittsburgh Penguins," Morehouse said. "And we're here to win."
Whether they do in the next few years will hinge, at least in part, on the performance of the latest additions to their management team.
"If you would have told me two years ago that I'd be general manager of the Pittsburgh Penguins, I would have started laughing," Hextall said. "But here we are."
