How will Hextall and Burke reshape the Penguins roster?
Dan Kingerski of Pittsburgh Hockey Now: It sounds unlikely that the Pittsburgh Penguins will trade forward Evgeni Malkin or defenseman Kris Letang.
“We like our team…” Hextall began. “…Our job is to analyze our team. I can’t tell you what’s coming our way; I can’t. I can’t tell you how good our team is going to be the rest of the year, therefore — to be definitive in a direction, obviously, we have different ideas. In my interviews, we talked about all kinds of different scenarios. We went through them all…
We’ve got to keep an eye on the future, and we’ll grab some assets here and there, but we’ve also got to put the best team — You’ve got players Malkin, Crosby, and Letang. We want to be as good as we can right now with three of the top players in the world.”
Maybe things change after this season, or possibly from what some team may offer them mid-season. Could an offer improve them this season? Still, seems unlikely for this year at least.
TSN: Darren Dreger brought up a couple of weeks ago the possibility that Evengi Malkin and Sidney Crosby may not finish their careers with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Darren Dreger when asked if the hirings of Ron Hextall and Brian Burke influence any of that.
“It depends on the conversations they have to have with Crosby, to some degree Malkin, and maybe Kris Letang fits into that conversation as well. They have to examine the current roster; what are the holes in this lineup? How confident are Hextall and Burke that they’re going to be able to plug those holes to make the Penguins a true Stanley Cup contender? Again, many believe the window is closing; they have to have that conversation. I’m sure it will happen in the short term and then perhaps again in the off-season looking forward.”
Seravalli on who else the Penguins could add to their managerial and scouting staff.
“I’d be shocked if he doesn’t bring Chris Pryor, the Nashville Predators scout, with him. Pryor was his right arm in Philadelphia, the man responsible for so many of the Flyers draft picks that you now see on the ice. And one other name to keep an eye on is Patrick Burke, the senior director of the department of player safety for the NHL. Yes, he’s Brian Burke’s son, but he previously worked for Pryor and the Flyers and he’s a guy that’s interviewed for a number of assistant GM openings around the league.”