The Ron Hextall era has come to a whimpering conclusion.
After constructing a roster that failed to make the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time since Sidney Crosby's rookie season, Hextall, along with his president of hockey operations, Brian Burke, and assistant general manager, Chris Pryor, was fired on Friday morning by Fenway Sports Group.
With another massive offseason on deck, Fenway is now tasked with hiring a new general manager, one who figures to take the team through the end of the Crosby era ... so long as they don't end up in another Hextall situation.
Dave Beeston, who has been around the team all season as a liaison to Fenway's highest-ranking executives, expressed a desire for hockey operations to be forward-thinking when speaking with reporters in Cranberry following the firings on Friday.
That likely means the Penguins' next general manager won't be a run-of-the-mill hockey man, but an executive who has tangible skills when it comes to any number of components regarding roster building and managing a team.
Whoever it ends up being, they'll be the one to decide whether or not Mike Sullivan will remain as head coach.
Below are five executives who the Penguins might want to consider to fill the vacancy. These are not rumors. Do not treat them as such.
JASON BOTTERILL
Botterill, 46, is one of two names on this list who have previously worked in the Penguins' front office. He got his start with the organization in the summer of 2007 when he was hired as director of hockey administration. Over the next decade, he served as the team's assistant general manager, interim general manager before Jim Rutherford was hired, and then associate general manager before departing for the Sabres' general manager position in the spring of 2017.
Many of Botterill's skills (which undoubtedly played a part in the Penguins' back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2016 and 2017) included managing the salary cap, researching the nuance of contract structures, negotiating and scouting.
His work as general manager of the Sabres left a bit to be desired in the moment, but hindsight later revealed that he did an acceptable -- if not strong -- job despite unfavorable circumstances from Buffalo ownership. Although he's been gone from the Sabres for three years since being fired in 2020, his mark on the team isn't to be ignored now as they're on the cusp of relevance again heading into next season. He was responsible for drafting Rasmus Dahlin, Dylan Cozens and Mattias Samuelsson, as well as trading for Tage Thompson, all of whom are now stars or key contributors.
Botterill currently serves as Ron Francis' assistant general manager for the Kraken. Almost sure to get another crack at a general manager position at some point, a reunion with the Penguins could make quite a bit of sense for both parties.
KYLE DUBAS
Dubas, 37, is in the final season of his contract as general manager of the Maple Leafs. He has been at the helm since 2018 after Lou Lamoriello's contract was not renewed. After several seasons of going balls to the wall to push the Maple Leafs toward Cup-contender status but failing to win a postseason series, another failure to do so this season might spell the end of the line for his time in Toronto.
His management career began back in 2011 when he was hired as general manager of the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds of the Ontario Hockey League. The Greyhounds were originally looking to hire a general manager with previous experience, but his interview blew them away, landing him the job. Through heavy utilization of data and analytics, Dubas managed to improve the Greyhounds significantly, as they finished second in the OHL during his final season with the team.
Dubas then began with the Maple Leafs in 2014 as assistant general manager. Right before he was promoted to general manager, he managed the AHL's Toronto Marlies to a Calder Cup, laying a developmental foundation for some of those players to eventually graduate to the NHL.
If Dubas isn't to remain with the Maple Leafs, he might have interest in the Penguins' general manager job due to the autonomy he'd likely have over hockey operations, compared to currently navigating several heavy influential voices in his ear, like Brendan Shanahan, in one of the world's largest hockey markets. His willingness to embrace data and analytics, as well as his mission to avoid bias in decision-making, figures to line up with the forward-thinking approach Fenway is looking for.
MIKE GILLIS
Gillis, 64, has not worked in an NHL front office since 2014, so that might give Fenway some reservations about entertaining him as a candidate. Still, there should be some intrigue about what he could bring to the table.
He served as the Canucks' general manager from 2008-2014, managing them to a Stanley Cup Final appearance in 2011. During his time in Vancouver, he was responsible for re-signing franchise legends Henrik Sedin and Daniel Sedin in the summer of 2009, acquiring Christian Ehrhoff for two no-name prospects, as well as trading Cory Schneider for the ninth overall pick in the 2013 draft, which became Bo Horvat. He also won the NHL's first-ever General Manager of the Year Award in 2011.
Gillis was eventually fired in the spring of 2014 after the Canucks fell out of contention, partially due to his comfortability in trading Roberto Luongo and Schneider, leaving an unproven Eddie Lack as the team's No. 1 between the pipes.
What's interesting is that Gillis was actually a candidate for the Penguins' general manager job after Rutherford departed. He obviously didn't get the job, but a copy of his application and plan for the Penguins was "accidentally" leaked online by his son for about 30 minutes before it was taken down. I'd never seen an application for an NHL front office job before, but his absolutely floored me.
In one part of his application regarding roster building, Gillis expressed the importance of "procuring complementary players to suit the core players' needs," which certainly holds relevance to the Penguins' current situation. In another section, he promised to be a strong, respectable leader that embraced the opinions and input of the support he has around him.
"Under my leadership, the analytics team will never be used as a tool to support pre-determined viewpoints, as it is so often by traditional GMs who have had analysts foisted on them against their will. Instead, I will empower our analytics team to seek answers to the questions that they themselves believe will yield the highest returns. I will not profess to always know those questions myself."
KATE MADIGAN
When Beeston spoke Friday, he made it a point to say "he or she" when referring to the future general manager. That means a woman like Madigan, 30, could be in the mix for the job. She has as sparkling a resume as anyone who hasn't previously served as a general manager.
Currently the Devils' assistant general manager, Madigan began with the team in 2017 as an assistant, helping with player information and video. In 2019, she was promoted to director of pro scouting operations, which she did for a year before another promotion to executive director of hockey operations. She received her latest promotion to assistant general manager last summer.
Originally hired by Ray Shero, Madigan quickly earned the trust of Devils' current general manager Tom Fitzgerald. In her current role, she is the point woman between business operations and hockey operations, as well as the analytics department and the coaching staff. It's unclear to what degree, but it's a reasonable assumption that she's had a considerable impact on the Devils having some of the NHL's best advanced metrics this season.
SAM VENTURA
Ventura, 35, is the other name on this list who has previously worked in the Penguins' front office. He was originally hired by the Penguins in 2015 as a consultant. The analysis he provided helped the Penguins to back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2016 and 2017. Prior to the start of the 2017-18 season, he was promoted to director of analytics, a role in which he served for three seasons before he was hired by the Sabres in 2021 as their vice president of hockey research and strategy.
Not only does Ventura have a statistics degree from Carnegie Mellon University, he has experience behind the bench, as he served as an assistant coach for the university's men's hockey team. That blend of raw knowledge of the game with the number-savviness to back it up is hard to ignore.
Ventura was one of the pioneering members of what's now referred to as hockey's "analytics community." In addition to having his statistical player ratings published in the peer-reviewed Annals of Applied Statistics, he was also a co-founder of the analytics website War-on-Ice in 2014.
For quite some time, Ventura has been tracking toward a very prominent position in an NHL front office. It would be rather fitting if he got his first crack at a general manager position back with the same team that it all started with.
