Penguins general manager Ron Hextall happy with prospect pool

During his season-ending media availability in Cranberry on Monday, Pittsburgh Penguins general manager Ron Hextall offered some upbeat endorsements of a handful of prospects with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the American Hockey League who could challenge for an NHL roster spot next season.

“There’s a few of them,” Hextall said. “You guys saw (forward Valtteri) Puustinen for one game. He’s a guy that certainly comes to mind. (Forwards Kasper) Bjorkqvist, (Filip) Hallander. (Forward Sam) Poulin, certainly probably the last 55 games (of the AHL season) took his game to another level. (Defenseman) P.O Joseph … We’ve got a number of guys down there.”

• A seventh-round pick (No. 203 overall) in 2019, the Finnish-born Puustinen led Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in scoring this past season, putting up 42 points (20 goals, 22 assists) in 73 games while playing in North America for the first time. He earned a brief recall in March and appeared in one NHL game, recording one assist.

• Bjorkqvist, a second-round pick (No. 61 overall) in 2016, made his NHL debut this past season and played in six games, scoring one goal.

• Hallander was a second-round pick (No. 58 overall) in 2019. He too made his NHL debut in 2021-22, appearing in one game with no points.

• The Penguins’ first-round pick (No. 21 overall) in 2019, Poulin just completed his first professional season with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. In 72 games, he had 37 points (16 goals, 21 assists).

• A first-round pick (No 23 overall) of the Arizona Coyotes in 2017, Joseph established career bests at the AHL level in goals (10) and points (31) in 61 games.

“It’s always comforting if you leave a couple of holes where you have a number of options versus one and you’re counting on this one kid,” Hextall said. “And if he’s not ready, it’s like ‘OK, where do we go now?” … But it’s comforting to us that we have a few kids that are kind on the verge of coming up and being ready to play at this level. It’s not forcing them into this level. … We feel comfortable that certainly a couple of them out that group could start the season in Pittsburgh.”

Joseph, arguably the franchise’s top prospect, has been stuck in a bit of a logjam among the organization’s left-handed defensemen. Namely, there are three established players ahead of him on the depth chart in Brian Dumoulin, Mike Matheson and Marcus Pettersson.

Hextall acknowledges the potential for trading one of those three in order to create room for Joseph.

“It’s certainly a possibility,” Hextall said. “You have to have (a team willing to trade with). You kind of look at your strengths and (look) where we can shave a little bit off the cap to add in another place. We’ll have all kind of discussions with regards to those types of issues that possibly we can create some more space within our cap.”

Hextall discussed a number of other subjects as they pertain to his team’s offseason.

• He offered few specifics when asked about his two most prominent restricted free agents, forwards Danton Heinen and Kasperi Kapanen.

“Once we work our way down and get a little clearer vision of our cap space and stuff that we’ll work through, issues like that. But at this point, I can’t really answer that because it’s hypothetical. We like both players. Danton came in, did a real good job for us. … It was kind of a ‘prove-it’ contract for him, and he did a real good job for us. So we’ll evaluate that one as we move forward here.

“(Kapanen, in the 2020-21 season) scored 30 points in 40 games. He kind of proved the type of numbers that he can put up. This year, he had similar numbers in twice the games. There’s more there for (Kapanen). He had an off year. We certainly expect more from him next year.”

• One contract Hextall was willing to discuss was the deal forward Bryan Rust signed Saturday for six years and a salary cap hit of $5.25 million.

“Signing (Rust), obviously, he’s a very good player,” Hextall said. “He’s an important piece to our team. He obviously plays a lot with Sid (Crosby) or (Evgeni Malkin). He can move up and down your lineup. He can kill penalties and play on the power play. So that was an important signing for us for sure. We have a certain amount of cap space left and we felt very comfortable with where he came in. … It’s a fair deal. We obviously stretched it out on term and that helped us a little bit with the (average annual value). So it was a number we could both live with and we’re happy with it. We’re happy to have Bryan around for the next six years.”

Hextall added that Rust had a minor surgical prodecured on an unspecified knee. Rust is expected to be fully available for training camp in September.

• The Penguins potentially could begin negotiations later this offseason with players scheduled to become free agents in the 2023 offseason such as Dumoulin and goaltender Tristan Jarry. Hextall offered little insight into those possibilities.

“Every case is different,” Hextall said. “Certain guys, if they have a year left, you try to work on them and get them done. Then other guys, you say, ‘Let’s see what this year brings,’ and we’ll go from there. It’s a hard question to answer just in a vacuum.”

• Hextall expressed satisfaction with how the team performed during the bulk of the 2021-22 season, even if the ending — a loss in the first round of the postseason to the New York Rangers — was unappetizing.

“When you think about from the start of the year to the end of the year, we start the season without (Malkin) and without (Crosby) and we keep our heads above water,” Hextall said. “I think about a resilient team. Obviously, when you lose out in the first round of the playoffs, you don’t feel real good about your season. If you really step back and you look at where we were, the adversity that we faced — I know every team faced adversity — but when you’re missing (Malkin) and Sid at the start of the year and you get off to a good start and we had guys stepping up here and there, I just felt like we were just a really resilient group, a really hard-working group. Sometimes, when you have superstars, it’s hard to be a really close-knit team. This team is a really close-knit team with obviously three guys that are very high profile.

“If we win the first round, we’re playing right now, we’re all happy. Obviously, we were close. There were some circumstances that dictated that we didn’t. But I didn’t feel like it was a lack of talent or depth or ability. It was more a couple of things that happened that went against us.”

• One of those circumstances was a presumed head injury Crosby suffered during Game 5 of the series. In the second period of that contest, Crosby was struck by a high hit from Rangers defenseman Jacob Trouba and left the contest then was held out of Game 6 of the series as well.

Earlier in Game 5, Trouba was assessed a penalty for elbowing Penguins forward Jake Guentzel on the first shift of the game.

Hextall suggested Trouba’s actions were not accidental.

“Remember the first shift of (Game 5)?” Hextall asked rhetorically. “Jake there, I felt like that one was pretty bad. I felt like there was some intent there. Sid’s, I think there was intent. And I think it’s arguable whether there was intent to injure or it was just intent to not let him get to the net. But it’s certainly unfortunate.

“The head shots, I believe we as a league have to continue to talk and evaluate where we are with head shots. Because it’s an issue that’s prevalent in sports and we need to continue to move forward and try to better our system where we try to get them out as much as possible. Hopefully, at some point, completely out.”

• This is the first offseason for the Penguins under the stewardship of new majority owners, Fenway Sports Group. There has already been one major change to the front office with David Morehouse resigning in late April.

When asked about his own status, Hextall was short on specifics but suggested he and the new owners have a shared vision.

“We’ve had real good communication with the Fenway group,” Hextall said. “They’re on board with the plan moving forward here trying to being as good as we can be and be a contender. So everything is good. They’re totally committed to winning as are we as a management group and a coaching staff. We’re just going to move along with the summer. We’ve got some things that we’re looking at in terms of adding to staff and stuff. We’re moving along and the communication with the Fenway group is good.”

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