I know where Brian Burke is.
Late Saturday night at PPG Paints Arena, after what might've been the Penguins' most miserable performance of a mostly miserable winter, a 6-4 loss to the lamest edition of the Sharks anyone's seen since they were digital patsies on the iconic NHL '94 video game, the home team's president of hockey operations fumed. And I mean visibly fumed: Stood by the locker room as players were still stripping off pads, his blood-red tie characteristically untied, his widened eyes appearing to rival that color, and his ears ... man, they might as well have been smokestacks.
So yeah, I'm aware of Burke's whereabouts. In more ways than one.
Ron Hextall?
No idea.
Spotted him earlier in the week in the press box, for the Tuesday game against the Panthers, but not since. A team source tells me he's been in Vancouver, British Columbia, to scout the Canadian Hockey League's annual prospects game, but ... really? Now?
Um, what's going on?
Until earlier this month and throughout Hextall's tenure, even in the peak-COVID period, he was everywhere. All the games. All the skates. All the practices. Even all the road trips. He and his team had been inseparable to the extreme. And suddenly, he's just there half the time. It's not just this week.
Beyond that, it's impossible to explain that, with the exception of a Nov. 30 press conference in Cranberry to discuss Kris Letang's second stroke, Hextall hasn't been heard, either. Not one interview with the team's various beat writers since training camp. Not one peep, aside from an occasional appearance on a team-produced podcast, the most recent of which was this past Tuesday. And if there were something personal, by the way, I'd assume partaking in a team-produced podcast would rank crazy-low on the priority list.
Our own beat writers have requested interviews with either Burke or Hextall, and we're told by the team that Hextall will be the next one to speak to the state of the team ... only he's not around.
Once more but louder: What's going on?
Is this hiding? Or waiting until things just kinda sort themselves out, then showing up with a smile? Or secretly meeting with Gary Bettman to raise the salary cap by, oh, tomorrow, so he can make everyone forget the Jeff Carter and Kasperi Kapanen contracts?
Here's pretty much the only thing I know with straight-faced certainty on this front: These Penguins are in dire need of a good general manager. Or, really, any general manager at all.
This team's not terrible, this stinker notwithstanding, and it's far from hopeless. For real. I was there, too, for the takedowns of some of the NHL's top-tier teams. I was there when they defended as if it were by design, when they supported the puck at all points on the rink, when they didn't toss it around like a greasy hand grenade ... and when they were, in fact, the league's very top team for a month straight.
But I'm also not naive enough to think that's about to boomerang back by hoping. Or whatever it is Hextall's doing, wherever he happens to be.
Because what this roster needs, and that means before the next drop of the puck Feb. 7 against the Avalanche following the now-in-effect bye week, is a near-total transfusion of grit, energy and momentum. You know, all that hard-to-play-against stuff. And as I've been typing into infinity for weeks now, that's primarily having third and fourth forward lines that are both capable and eager to play precisely that way. As opposed to having Carter floating around for three hours, plus five guys named Brock McGinn.
I asked Mike Sullivan point-blank after this game if he's getting enough from his bottom six.
"Well, we're certainly not getting it consistently enough, and it reflects in our results," he'd reply. "That's all I can say, is we need to be better."
And I thought that really was all he'd say, as he'd seemed to be in that mode, yet again palpably put off by what his team had just done. But then he kept right on rolling: "The expectations are higher. We've got to do a better job, in my mind, at being harder to play against."
There it is. Knew it was coming.
"We generate offense consistently. We score goals consistently. We've got to do a better job of keeping it out of our net. We've got to be harder to play against, and I think it starts with managing the puck. That goes through all four lines, and our defense as well. We've got to do a better job of taking care of the puck, and I didn't think we did a good job tonight. That was, I think, a direct result of some of the goals that were scored."
Sure was. Evgeni Malkin might've had the ugliest three-point output of his life, scoring twice, setting up another ... and registering a richly deserved minus-3 by gifting at least two of San Jose's goals away, and I'll bet he was on Sullivan's mind in making the above remark.
But sorry, when almost all of the offense is coming from either the top two lines or the power play, this can't happen:
That's the only goal I'm going to share in this column -- Danny Shirey's got all the rest -- and it's a stomach-turner. Not just because it allowed the Sharks to tie, 2-2, with 6.5 seconds left. But also because Erik Karlsson, the preeminent offensive defenseman of this generation, is hilariously let loose by Danton Heinen. And because all five of the Penguins' skaters -- one, two, three, four, five -- fly over toward San Jose's Alexander Barabanov as if ... as if ... he were Karlsson, I guess.
That's not a fourth line to be taken seriously. If it were a fluke, a rare occurrence, fine. But this is par for the course, same as it was the other night against the Panthers when a lot of these same players were flicking the puck all over creation while allegedly protecting leads.
Sullivan can't fix this.
Repeating for emphasis: This isn't a discipline/strategy issue. This is a personnel issue.
Nothing about this superlative coach's system has a prayer if he doesn't have that balance that I described to him in the question asked above. He needs the Brandon Tanev types, the Carl Hagelin types, even the Zach Aston-Reese and Dominik Simon types, to succeed. He needs constant pressure on the puck. He needs natural urgency to pursue it, then smart decisions once it's claimed.
This, by the way, is why I used to bite back at anyone complaining about the lack of goals from those four examples I just gave. No one needed them to score. It was cool if they'd contribute occasionally, but they understood and embraced the real roles they had of wearing down an opponent, working deep, drawing penalties, providing that vital spark that really shouldn't all be emanating from one second-line winger in Jason Zucker.
Where's any of that now?
Carter looks borderline comatose at this point. I can't be sure that he got complacent after Hextall signed him to that out-of-nowhere two-year extension in the middle of last season, but I'd bet it's no coincidence. Watch him out there. Isolate on him. It's not just that he's slow-footed. It's that everything's fallen off. He can't make a solitary play with his hands, all the way down to the routine reception of a pass.
This isn't a cheap shot on my part. I can respect what he's done while still recognizing where he is. Same thing applied with the final season here for Chris Kunitz. When the end came, boy, it came hard.
I know he's got the no-trade clause, just as I know that no team would want him after so much as a cursory glance at his current play. But I also know he doesn't need to be dressed.
And all that's to say nothing of the invisible McGinn, the infinite project Kasperi Kapanen, or whatever remains of Teddy Blueger post-broken-jaw or post-Tanev/Aston-Reese, depending upon which theory of his disintegration one elects.
Please, please, please spare me any suggestion that Josh Archibald's return will help. Nice fourth-line addition. Anything but a panacea.
Or any suggestion that full health, in general, will solve the third and fourth lines. Because all that's currently missing are Kapanen and Archibald. Though I suppose one could also stick McGinn in this category, since he scarcely exists.
Or any suggestion that Tristan Jarry relegating Casey DeSmith to backup will do it. It'll help immensely, but all the rest will get exposed in short order.
More than anything, though, please spare me any more excuses about the salary cap.
Back when Hextall was still in contact with the outside world, he'd speak endlessly of the cap and its countless challenges. And he'd do so as if he wasn't the one responsible for paying the following salaries this season: $3.2 million to Kapanen, $3.125 million to Carter, $2.75 million to McGinn, $2.2 million to Blueger ... and don't even get me started on prioritizing Carter and Blueger over Jared McCann in the Seattle expansion draft.
That's $10 million-plus essentially being lit on fire. When all that was needed was a busload of Brian Gibbons clones to skate through the glass.
I asked Geno after this one how important it'll be for everyone to tighten up upon the return:
I asked Bryan Rust, too:
Sounds good.
But it always sounds good. Doesn't change.
Presuming Hextall's still employed, he needs to get to work. There's 10 whole days till the next game. Set aside any sentiment about past signings or past favorite players. Take an excruciating look at who's helping, who's hurting. Do whatever's necessary to prevent Carter from hurting. Release people. Buy them out. Demote them. Find the cap space. Dig as deep as necessary into the AHL pool, including the waiver wire, for guts and grit galore.
Then acquire real help.
Pro tip: Gibbons is still grinding away. He's 34 and taking regular shifts for ERC Ingolstadt of Germany's Deutsche Eishockey Liga. He's even popped a couple goals. And this, meine freunde, despite dragging around more ads than a Formula 1 auto racer:
ERC INGOLSTADT
Brian Gibbons in October with ERC Ingolstadt in Germany's Deutsche Eishockey Liga.
Hey, at least he won't be invisible.
Or indiscoverable.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE THREE STARS
As selected at PPG Paints Arena:
1. Logan Couture, Sharks C
2. Evgeni Malkin, Penguins C
3. Alexander Barabanov, Sharks LW
THE INJURIES
• Tristan Jarry, goaltender, has an upper-body injury and has yet to resume skating.
• Jan Rutta, defenseman, has an upper-body injury and is on long-term injured reserve. He's skating on his own.
• Josh Archibald, right winger, has a lower-body injury and is on injured reserve. He's skating with the team.
• Kasperi Kapanen, right winger, has an undisclosed injury and is on injured reserve. He's skating with the team.
THE LINEUPS
Sullivan's lines and pairings:
Jake Guentzel-Sidney Crosby-Bryan Rust
Jason Zucker-Evgeni Malkin-Rickard Rakell
Brock McGinn-Teddy Blueger-Jeff Carter
Drew O'Connor-Ryan Poehling-Danton Heinen
Brian Dumoulin-Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson-Jeff Petry
P.O Joseph-Chad Ruhwedel
And for David Quinn's Sharks:
Timo Meier-Tomas Hertl-Noah Gregor
Michael Eyssimont-Logan Couture-Alexander Barabanov
Nick Bonino-Nico Sturm-Evgeny Svechnikov
Oskar Lindblom-Steven Lorentz-Jonah Gadjovich
Jaycob Megna-Erik Karlsson
Marc-Edouard Vlasic-Matt Benning
Jacob MacDonald-Mario Ferraro
THE SCHEDULE
That's it for quite a while. The NHL's bye week begins Sunday, continues through the All-Star Weekend Feb. 3-4 in Sunrise, Fla., and the Penguins' next game is Tuesday, Feb. 7, against the defending Stanley Cup champion Avalanche at PPG Paints Arena.
THE MULTIMEDIA
THE CONTENT
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