Mark Madden: GM Ron Hextall deserves blame for Penguins' goaltending disaster

It gets boring to continuously crucify GM Ron Hextall and president of hockey ops Brian Burke for their part in mangling the Pittsburgh Penguins. They’re not on the ice.

But it’s also hard to ditch such criticism, not least after Tuesday’s damaging 7-4 loss at Detroit.

Goaltending lost that game. Casey DeSmith was unspeakably bad. This space campaigned for DeSmith to start at Detroit. This space was stupid.

Four of the goals were shaky, including all three of ex-Penguin David Perron’s third-period tallies. (Perron hadn’t scored in the previous nine games, BTW.) Perron’s second was from a bad angle and crept through a five-hole that seemed to not exist. It might have defied the space/time continuum.

But the other option in net isn’t exactly solid. Tristan Jarry has been hurt five times inside of the past year and hasn’t often sparkled when available.

That’s where Hextall comes in.

The Penguins had goaltending problems in last year’s playoffs. Both Jarry and DeSmith got hurt. The Penguins turned to Mr. Spicy Pork, then lost in the first round.

Jarry gets hurt too much. DeSmith’s inadequacies are magnified if he’s playing behind a goalie who’s less than durable, which Jarry clearly is.

More is less with DeSmith, as we see this season with a career-high 37 games under his belt. (DeSmith battles, but you’re in trouble if that’s the sharpest arrow in your quiver. He’s just not very good.)

Hextall saw all that, knew all that, but didn’t fix it. DeSmith’s contract was up at the end of last season. Let DeSmith go and get somebody better in free agency.

Aha, you cry: Was anybody better available in free agency?

Yep. Ilya Samsonov signed a one-year deal with Toronto worth $1.8 million. Jaroslav Halak got a one-year contract from the New York Rangers that pays $1.55 million. Martin Jones inked a one-year pact with Seattle for $2 million. (Those are the reasonably priced options.)

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DeSmith got a two-year contract from the Penguins worth $3.6 million.

Not one GM in the NHL (besides Hextall, apparently) believes DeSmith is a better goalie than Samsonov, Halak or Jones.

Each of those three has seen more significant NHL action than DeSmith. Jones started for San Jose against the Penguins in the 2016 Stanley Cup Final.

Are any of those goalies great? No. But all they had to be is better than DeSmith.

All are, considerably so. Each is more capable of handling a bigger workload, too.

Yet Hextall gave DeSmith more term and bigger average annual value than Halak, more term than Samsonov and Jones. (Samsonov got equal AAV.)

Hextall didn’t let DeSmith get to free agency, which would have produced little to no outside demand for DeSmith’s services. That would have driven down DeSmith’s price.

The Penguins bid against themselves for a marginal goalie nobody else would have wanted.

What was Hextall thinking?

As noted, Hextall retained DeSmith before free agency hit. That’s a lot easier than trying to outwork other GMs in an open-market bidding war.

Some call Hextall patient. Perhaps lazy is a better term. But you don’t have to re-sign everybody, as evidenced by Bryan Rust.

The Penguins goaltending could be better and should be. But it’s not. Better options were available. Hextall chose not to pursue them.

But it’s not like Hextall played goal in Detroit. If Hextall had, he probably would have chased Perron around the ice.