CRANBERRY, Pa. -- The Penguins are entering an offseason of uncertainty.
Surely, moves will need to be made this summer in order to turn this team back into a playoff team. They also have a number of pending free agents -- notably Tristan Jarry, Jason Zucker and Brian Dumoulin -- with whom decisions must be made.
The uncertainty is two-fold: Decisions have to be made, and decisions have to be made on who will be making those decisions.
The Penguins are without a general manager after firing Ron Hextall, president of hockey operations Brian Burke, and assistant general manager Chris Pryor on Friday. While Fenway Sports Group begins its search for a new head of hockey operations, director of hockey operations Alec Schall, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton general manager/manager of hockey operations Erik Heasley, and hockey operations analyst Andy Saucier will handle managerial duties on the hockey operations side while the team searches for a general manager, and Mike Sullivan will take on additional duties to assist the group during the transition.
That committee of what's left of the higher-ups in the hockey operations department isn't making any long-term decisions on things like signing key players to contract extensions, though. Without a general manager, the Penguins' impending free agents are in a sort of limbo.
"It's tough with what happened with Ron, Brian and Chris," Jarry said at the Penguins' locker room cleanout day at the Lemieux Complex on Saturday. "It's tough for the free agents. You don't really have anyone to talk to right now."
The aforementioned staff members aren't the ones searching for their new boss, of course. Rather, they're running the more day-to-day operations of the club that are typical of an offseason.
"Well, FSG will go through a process to find a new general manager that will lead our team moving forward," Sullivan said of the structure. "In the meantime, we've got to do our best to continue to operate efficiently and effectively. There's a number of people as (Fenway's) Dave Beeston spoke yesterday about that are part of that process, me being one. I think my role in it is just going to be the hockey side - assessing our team, where we're at, where we think we need to go moving forward, identifying needs, things of that nature. I will just be one voice as a group of people that will do our best to make sure that the Penguins continue to operate at an effective and efficient level."
Even for the players who are under contract, it's not a good feeling to see their bosses fired. While much of the blame for the Penguins' failure to make the playoffs falls on the shoulders of upper management for constructing this roster, the players on the ice aren't blameless. Rickard Rakell said that all the players felt responsible for what happened.
"It's not just them," Rakell said. "It's a team effort and we couldn't get it done."
Fenway Sports Group's Beeston made a point Friday to emphasize the quality of individuals that Hextall, Burke and Pryor are. They're good people. Many of the players on Saturday shared similar sentiments. They feel sorry to see individuals they had relationships with and respect for take the fall.
"It's uneasy, you feel disappointed," Dumoulin said of the firings. "Those are the guys that obviously brought this group together, so they believed in it. We let them down. It's tough, because they can't go out there and play the games for us. It's really disappointing. Hexy and Pryor and Burkie, I love seeing those guys. I'd see Burkie a lot, whether it's sitting down for lunch or anything like that. That's definitely a guy I'll keep in touch with."
Dumoulin wasn't the only player to speak to the character of their now-former bosses.
"It's always tough to see whenever trades happen, or people get fired and stuff like that," said Marcus Pettersson. "They're great people, first and foremost. I had a ton of ton of fun working with them. Great people. So we take that on as a group as well, because it's on us. It's on everybody."
Zucker called Hextall, Burke and Pryor "great humans."
"We all have to take some ownership over what happened," Zucker said. "It's our fault that they're not back. I feel badly for those guys. They've treated me well. I wish them nothing but the best moving forward. They're all great humans. Obviously, it didn't work out here. But again, that falls on the players. We definitely feel that accountability."
At the same time, players didn't express any sort of disagreements or lack of understanding in regard the moves. They understand why a new direction was needed.
"Change is inevitable at times," Jake Guentzel said. "It's a tough business we're in, and that's part of it."
Bryan Rust said that he was still "digesting" the moves, but expressed understanding.
"When things don't go your way, and things don't go as planned, in an organization like this that has a winning culture, I think change is inevitable," Rust said. "Those things happen in our sport when we don't live up to expectations. I think players feel that a little bit, knowing that. I don't know if we had a hand in it, but us not getting to where we wanted to go as a team didn't help the situation."
