The Pittsburgh Penguins acquired forward Kevin Hayes and a second-round pick from the St. Louis Blues over the weekend in exchange for future considerations.
Hayes is about to begin the sixth year of a seven-year contract. His salary cap hit is $7,142,857. But, thanks to a trade from Philadelphia last year, the Flyers are retaining half of that salary for the remainder of the contract.
In this week’s “Madden Monday” podcast, Mark Madden of 105.9 The X and TribLive says there is plenty to glean about Kyle Dubas’ big-picture strategy from a move like this.
“That tells me what Dubas’ position is moving forward, which is to stockpile draft picks and not win now. Because he can’t win now,” Madden said. “He gave it a year. It was horrible, despite getting Erik Karlsson the reigning and defending Norris Trophy winner. They missed the playoffs in a really bad Eastern Conference. So now they’re just moving forward. And I’m curious to see what Sidney Crosby’s reaction will be to that — especially given that, as of Monday, he can sign a contract extension.”
As of now, Crosby has one year remaining with the Penguins on his current deal at $8.7 million.
Madden says even though the team appears to be posturing for an offseason absent of big acquisitions, Crosby will still likely sign an extension.
“I just don’t think he has it in him to leave,” Madden said. “I think he might be steered by his agent to consider all options. But I think, at the end of the day, he stays no matter what.”
Fair enough. But could the Penguins’ current inability to quickly improve the roster dissuade Crosby from signing an extension for as long as Penguins fans want?
“I have no idea,” Madden replied. “They can’t win anymore with this core. And that’s not a knock on Sid. If they had three Sids instead of Sid, (Kris) Letang and (Evgeni) Malkin (they might be able to).”
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As written by TribLive’s Seth Rorabaugh at the draft in Las Vegas, Dubas said, “We want to get back to being a contender. The coaches and the players have to look at it day to day; they’re trying to win every day. I have to look at it with a much broader lens of, in Pittsburgh, to be a team that just squeaks in — I understand that it would be nice to be in — but we want to be a contender.”
If that’s Dubas’ way of saying that the team is more than just one offseason away from becoming a contender, Madden is on board with that sentiment.
“He’s right,” Madden said. “One of the big weaknesses this team has is that Sid still thinks they can win. Of course, he’s going to think that because he’s still great. But they can’t win — not with this group.”
So far, Madden thinks the offseason market is doing little to change that perspective.
“Nobody wants to trade for Tristan Jarry. Nobody wants to trade for Reilly Smith. Max Domi already signed an extension with Toronto. So some of the things we thought might happen good for the Penguins aren’t happening,” Madden concluded.
Also, in the podcast, we discuss Jake Guentzel’s rights being traded to Tampa Bay, the Pirates dropping two of three in Atlanta, some Steelers topics, and daiquiris versus margaritas.
