Penguins GM Ron Hextall faces 'tough decisions' with next week's expansion draft

As a goaltender during his playing career, Ron Hextall knew some nights were going to be easier than others.

Especially if that night’s opponent was an expansion team.

In the early 1990s, the NHL expanded with five teams — the San Jose Sharks, Ottawa Senators, Tampa Bay Lightning, Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and Florida Panthers — and usually, those teams were bad.

“Back then, you liked playing expansion teams because it was almost a guaranteed win (with) Ottawa, San Jose, whatever team it was,” Hextall said. “It’s certainly different nowadays. (The Vegas Golden Knights) obviously did a terrific job with the (2017) expansion draft. The rules are much more fair now than they were then. You’re obviously paying a lot of money for an expansion team and you deserve to have a better team.”

After paying $500 million to join the NHL in 2017, the Golden Knights took advantage of less restrictive rules for the expansion draft and crafted a roster that was good enough to go to the Stanley Cup Final during their inaugural season.

When this year’s expansion draft opens Wednesday, the Seattle Kraken, having recently been liberated of $650 million in order to gain entry into the NHL, will operate under the same exact rules and will likely be able to create a team that will rival the 2017-18 Golden Knights.

One of those players will have been a member of the 2020-21 Pittsburgh Penguins.

Hextall has the task of figuring out which one of those players will be dressing for the Kraken in October.

Incumbent NHL teams — Vegas is exempt from this expansion draft — must submit a list of players they will protect by Saturday. The NHL is expected to announce those lists Sunday.

The league will allow incumbent franchises to protect either seven forwards, three defenseman and one goaltender or some combination of eight forwards and defenseman as well as one goaltender. Hextall indicated the Penguins will likely go with the first option.

By rule, franchise forwards Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and defenseman Kris Letang must be protected due to the no-movement clauses in their contracts. That leaves the Penguins with the freedom to protect five additional forwards and two other defensemen as well as a goaltender.

Hextall was hesitant to reveal who else he will protect but indicated he is close to finalizing his list.

“We have a real good idea,” Hextall said by phone Thursday. “We’re going to go over it the next couple of days here one more time. But we have a real good idea at this point. It was a little bit up in the air a couple of weeks ago. You didn’t know if you were going to move someone prior to. But right now, I’d say, best guess, that we’re not going move anybody. We have a real good idea but we’ll review it one more time.”

Players with fairly prominent roles such as forwards Jeff Carter, Jared McCann, Brandon Tanev and Jason Zucker as well as defensemen Mike Matheson and Marcus Pettersson are, at the very least, candidates to not be protected.

“We will let players know that aren’t protected,” said Hextall, who served as the Philadelphia Flyers general manager during the 2017 expansion draft. “It is tough. Went through it when Vegas came in. Calling the players, no player wants to get that call. But we are restricted. It’s seven (forwards), three (defensemen) and one (goaltender). It’s difficult for most teams. The last couple of decisions are hard. Typically, it’s not black and white. There’s some gray in there. There’s tough decisions but we don’t have a choice. We have to make those tough decisions.”

During the 2017 expansion draft, the Golden Knights swung a number of side deals for future assets to complete agreements with incumbent franchises in selecting certain players. In the Penguins’ case, they sent a second-round pick to the Golden Knights to guarantee they would select goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury instead of another player.

Hextall, mindful of the Penguins’ shallow pool of prospects and draft picks, indicated he did not want to go that route with the Kraken and was content to lose a player without any prior arrangements during his end-of-season press conference in June.

On Thursday, Hextall said his stance on that front has not changed.

“That’s where we’re at right now, yes,” Hextall said. “I don’t anticipate a deal with Seattle. I guess things could change but I think at this point, we would just lose a player.”

One player who appears to be safe is forward Teddy Blueger. On Wednesday, Blueger, who was scheduled to become a restricted free agent this upcoming offseason, signed a two-year contract extension with a salary cap hit of $2.2 million. Hextall stopped short of saying if Blueger would indeed be protected but offered a hearty endorsement of the defensive center.

“Teddy’s a highly intelligent player,” Hextall said. “He works extremely hard. He’s a top penalty killer for us. He’s probably still a little bit underrated. He makes a lot of plays. He obviously put up good numbers last year. Teddy, he’s a big part of our team and we’re certainly happy to have him under contract for the next two years.”

Who exactly will be a member of the Penguins’ roster when training camp opens in roughly two months remains a work in progress. That process will unfold over the next two weeks with the entry-level draft (July 23 and 24) and the opening of the free agent signing period (July 28).

But first, the expansion draft needs to play out. The process of picking what players the Penguins choose to protect is much more nuanced than just trying to find the best 20 players to dress for the lineup.

“There’s many things that come into play,” Hextall said. “Your depth at a position. The contracts, the age. We’ve looked at everything in terms of every player. You make your decisions based on that. Some, for a lot of teams, are going to be contract-related. There’s a lot that goes into it. It’s not as probably simple as we’d all like to think it is.”

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