Orange & Black / Philadelphia Flyers

Ну что, пойдет Хекс в Ойлерз? Я только за

Ну что, пойдет Хекс в Ойлерз? Я только за

Yohe: Ron Hextall is running the Penguins into the ground

TAMPA, Fla. — Did Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang come back for this? Does Sidney Crosby want to finish his career in Pittsburgh if this is the direction the Penguins are taking?

These are questions very much worth pondering tonight.

The question of whether or not Ron Hextall is fit to guide the Penguins into the future has already been answered.

Hextall hasn’t made many understandable moves since taking over as Penguins general manager more than two years ago. This is because there isn’t a plan and there never was a plan. And if Mikael Granlund was the plan all along, then I think it’s fair to question Hextall’s player evaluation skills. Those skills, incidentally, are supposed to be his strength.

Enough is enough.

In fact, the only sensible moves he has executed — other than a couple of shrewd decisions to attain Jeff Carter and Rickard Rakell at the past two trade deadlines — were the contracts he convinced Letang and Malkin to sign last summer. They’re still really good and playing at a reduced rate. Great.

But really, what is going on?

I’m not here to blast Granlund before he’s even played a game with the Penguins. This is an accomplished NHL player, a guy who has produced 479 points in 729 games. Maybe he’ll thrive in Pittsburgh given that he’ll be surrounded by more talent than what the Predators were offering.

Maybe.

And yes, he’s a better player than Teddy Blueger. But, so is most of the league.

Let’s consider some items:

They’re the oldest team in the NHL.
Granlund is 31, giving the Penguins yet another player over 30. More to the point, this is a player who appears to be on a decline. He only has nine goals in 58 games and hasn’t touched 20 goals since the 2017-18 season. He has three career seasons of better than 60 points, but two of them came in the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons.

The Penguins are one of the NHL’s smallest teams. They could be pushed around routinely.
Granlund is 5-10, 185 pounds.

The Penguins largely won the Stanley Cup in 2016 and 2017 because of their remarkable team speed.