CRANBERRY, Pa. -- After signing Bryan Rust to a six-year contract extension on Saturday night, Ron Hextall made it clear that his vision for the Penguins' future includes pending unrestricted free agents Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin during his end-of-season media availability at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex Monday afternoon.
“I don’t negotiate through the media. You guys know that," Hextall told reporters. "But, we have had discussions very recently and will continue to have those discussions. We would like to sign both players. They’ve both been here 16 years. In a perfect world, Geno (Malkin) retires a Penguin and I think Tanger (Letang) is the same."
Less than a week after Malkin, and Letang to a lesser extent, seemed to have succumbed to the idea that they might not return to the Penguins next season, it's got to be reassuring to hear their general manager voice his hope to keep them in the picture while underscoring the importance of them finishing their careers in Pittsburgh.
"These two are generational players, they don’t come along very often. We’d like to keep them here through the end of their careers. Obviously we have some issues and areas we have to work through in terms of the salary cap. It’s a puzzle right now and I wish we had more pieces in place to make it a little more clear, but it’s hard to even venture to guess where we’ll end up. … I have no timeline, though.”
The Penguins currently have just under $24 million in cap space heading into next season, according to CapFriendly. Malkin and Letang, if re-signed, figure to take up a significant chunk of that space, leaving the Penguins with little money to fill out the rest of the roster. Of course Hextall would like to make the Penguins a bit younger and faster, but the reality is that neither player's impact will be replaced on the open market at any sort of reasonable price.
"They’re both great athletes, they’ve both been here a long time, they’re both performing at a high level right now. We’d certainly like to have them in the mix in September," Hextall said.
Part of Hextall's desire to re-sign Malkin and Letang seems to stem from his perception that the Penguins were a pretty good team this past season and not all that far off from competing for a Stanley Cup.
"I didn’t feel like there was a lack of talent or depth or ability. It was more a couple things that happened that went against us," Hextall said of the Penguins failing to win a playoff round for the fifth consecutive season.
Hextall's track record as a general manager wouldn't indicate any sort of monumental blowup or rebuild of the Penguins' roster this offseason. He put that idea to rest Monday afternoon.
"We felt like we were certainly in that series (against the Rangers). There were some circumstances there that dictated that we didn’t come out on the winning end of it, unfortunately. But, we felt like we were in it and we did feel like we had a good enough team where we could’ve gone on a run here. Obviously in the end you gotta get it done, so our plan is to continue on trying to win the Stanley Cup. (Fenway Sports Group) is totally on board, and management team and coaches are on board."
He's not going to throw anyone under the bus, but that's largely referring to the Penguins being forced to start an AHL goalie five times throughout the series, in addition to injuries to prominent players.
What stands out the most, aside from the desire to re-sign Malkin and Letang, is Hextall mentioning that Fenway Sports Group is in accordance with his plan for the team.
"We’ve had real good communication with the Fenway Group," Hextall Said. "They’re on board with the plan we’re moving forward here, trying to be as good as we can be and be a contender. So, everything’s good. They’re totally committed to winning, as are we as a management group and a coaching staff. We’re just gonna move along with the summer. We’ve got some things we’re looking at in terms of adding to staff, so we’re moving along and as I said, the communication with the Fenway Group is good."
That certainly doesn't sound like a person in danger of losing their job.
For better or worse, all signs point to Hextall keeping his role as general manager and being tasked with maneuvering the biggest offseason in franchise history.
He's ready for the challenge, but admitted "a little more cap space would be great."
MORE FROM THE GM:
• Hextall spoke glowingly of Rust and what he brings to the Penguins. He might not have been the Penguins' biggest fish to fry this offseason, but getting his deal finalized so early obviously gives Hextall another piece to add to the far-from-complete puzzle he's working on.
"We have a certain amount of cap space left and we felt very comfortable with where he came in. It’s a fair deal. We obviously stretched it out on term and that helped us a little bit with the AAV, so it was a number that we could both live with and we’re happy with it."
• Don't be surprised to see some fresh faces from the AHL push for a roster spot at the beginning of next season.
"You guys saw (Valtteri) Puustinen for one game, he’s a guy that certainly comes to mind. (Kasper) Bjorkqvist, (Filip) Hallander, (Sam) Poulin … P.O Joseph," Hextall said when asked which Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins might be ready to make the jump to the NHL. It’s always comforting if you leave a couple holes, or you have a number of options versus one and you’re counting on this one kid, and then if he’s not ready it’s like ‘OK where do we go now?’ It’s comforting to us that we have a few kids that are kind of on the verge of coming up and being ready to play at this level. … We feel comfortable that, certainly, a couple of them out of that group could start the season in Pittsburgh."
• It sounds like Kasperi Kapanen will be back with the Penguins next season. Hextall was disappointed with Kapanen's performance this past season, but seems to believe he's in order for some positive regression.
"There’s more there for Kappy. He had an off year. We certainly expect more from him next year."
The Penguins will be able to submit an extremely cheap qualifying offer to Kapanen, who is a pending restricted free agent.
• Hextall was outspoken about a couple of dangerous hits against his star players during the Penguins' first-round series against the Rangers. He said the league has quite a bit of work to do on its way to removing such plays from the game.
"We as a league, have to continue to talk and evaluate where we are with headshots. It’s an issue that’s prevalent in sports and we need to continue to move forward and try to better our system where we try to get them out as much as possible, hopefully at some point, completely out."
