Penguins general manager Ron Hextall looks to improve but with limited salary cap space
Leading up to his first two trade deadlines as general manager of the Pittsburgh Penguins, Ron Hextall had a pretty consistent message: He was happy with the roster he had at his disposal.
“I like our team,” Hextall said on April 7, 2021. “I like our depth. … I like where we’re at right now.”
Five days later, he traded for forward Jeff Carter.
Roughly 11 months after that, a similar pattern followed.
After saying, “I feel pretty good about the depth of our team,” on March 11, 2022, Hextall dealt for forward Rickard Rakell only 10 days later.
On Feb. 5, 2023, Hextall’s assessment is slightly different as he approaches another traded deadline (March 3).
“When I look at our team on paper, I like our team,” Hextall said while holding court with media Sunday at the team’s facility in Cranberry. “When I look at some of the games in the results, I don’t like it as much. So sometimes you get better when you make a move with a certain player that fits better, whether it’s internal or external.”
What hasn’t changed much from the previous two campaigns is the salary cap. The Penguins, like most teams, do not have a surplus of flexibility. Growth for the NHL’s salary cap ceiling — currently entrenched at $82.5 million — has been limited in recent years because of the lasting effects the pandemic and what it has done to the league’s economics.
At the moment, the Penguins have $1,350,000 of salary cap space, according to Cap Friendly. But that figure has been achieved by placing forward Josh Archibald ($900,000 salary cap hit) and defenseman Jan Rutta ($2.75 million) on long-term injured reserve, a designation that temporarily allows teams to exceed the salary cap ceiling.
And they’re not alone. According to Cap Friendly, 24 of the league’s 32 teams are projected to have less than $2 million of salary cap space to operate with.
“I had an unwritten rule a few years ago to keep $2 million in cap space, just to allow call-ups and possible deadline (transactions),” Hextall said. “With the flat cap, quite frankly, it’s become much more difficult.”
It has led to a fairly stagnant trade market around the NHL to this point of the season.
“We’ve got to be creative with our cap situation,” Hextall said. “But I think (24) teams are either within $2 million of the cap or (using long-term injured reserve). So there’s a lot of teams that are in a tight situation here. And, certainly, we’re one of them.
“But we’d certainly like to find something that upgrades our group and … maybe it’s a better fit.”
Hextall’s answers to most of the other questions he took Sunday were less certain. He addressed a number of subjects:
• He offered support to his top two goaltenders,starter Tristan Jarry and backup Casey DeSmith, and suggested what they have offered — good and bad — can be tied to the team’s overall performance.
Jarry has offered mostly sturdy play this season — in 27 games, he has a 16-5-5 record — but injuries have derailed him a bit, having missed 10 of the past 12 games because of various ailments. Currently, he is considered “day-to-day” as the result of an undisclosed injury.
As for DeSmith, he has won fewer than half of the games he has played in. His record is 7-10-4 in 22 contests.
“Our team has been very inconsistent this year,” Hextall said. “I think we’ve had moments where we’ve been very good. I think we’ve had moments where we haven’t been very good. And I think when you tie the goalies into it, I think it’s probably fair to say I think (Jarry) has been, for the most part, pretty good. Little bit of inconsistency.
“Casey has been good at times. I think (a 3-2 shootout road loss to the Washington Capitals in which DeSmith made 43 saves) was a great example where he was very good. And other times he hasn’t been as good as we need him to be. But, again, I think that’s reflective of a lot of players on our team. And we’re looking for more consistency from here on through the end of the year from individuals but also the group.”
• An area of concern is the team’s scuffling bottom-six forwards, who have offered limited and inconsistent contributions.
“I think it’s fair to say the chemistry there hasn’t been kind of like we had hoped it would be,” Hextall said. “There’s times, I think, where we’ve had some chemistry down there. But I think over the course of the year that chemistry hasn’t been that great. Chemistry is a tough thing to define when you’re talking about a line or a hockey team or a defense or a forward group. But you can kind of feel it and see it when it’s there. And I think that’s somewhere where we can look to improve.”
• Hextall indicated he is not eager to deal away a first-round pick in a future draft in any potential transaction. Throughout his tenure with the team, he has maintained a consistent stance that moving out future assets is not his preference.
“I would say that’s not on the table,” Hextall said. “I haven’t been asked for that, certainly. … There’s not a lot of teams right now that are looking to jump and kind of get down in the fine strokes here. But, certainly, the talk is picking up. And in terms of first-round picks for getting salary out, I don’t see that being an option for us.”
• Hextall suggested he is hesitant to execute a trade out of any perceived obligation to simply make one.
“It’s really dangerous to feel like you have to make a deal,” he said. “We’re going to make a deal because we feel like it makes our team better. In terms of just like the chemistry part that I’m talking about, we can bring a piece in, and we think it’ll fit better with our group here and maybe connect a line. That’s what we’ll want to do. … I’ve never felt pressure to make a deal for the sake of making the deal. I’d like to make a deal to make our team better.”
• The Penguins’ overall inconsistency has vexed Hextall.
“We’ve got to be better on a nightly basis,” Hextall said. “It’s not like you’re going to be here necessarily every night. It’s unrealistic. Eighty-two games, it’s a grind, but we need to be, we need to be here. You know, we see too much of this (raises hand) and then too much of this (lowers hand). We play a great game, and we play a bad game. So we got to bring, bring those games up.”
Seth Rorabaugh is a TribLive reporter covering the Pittsburgh Penguins. A North Huntingdon native, he joined the Trib in 2019 and has covered the Penguins since 2007. He can be reached at srorabaugh@triblive.com.
Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free.