It is never a smooth transition when you completely change the front office of a team. The matter is complicated when the previous boss ups and leaves without giving notice to anybody. It gets even muddier when the franchise still has a small path to being a contender while the franchise icons are still producing and the new regime wants to balance that with the future.

It’s fair to question specific decisions. Always.
But it’s important to recognize that Ron Hextall was hired because Mario Lemieux believed he could best retain/add assets while maintaining contender on way to building Cup contender again.
Challenging process in infancy stages.

— Rob Rossi (@Real_RobRossi) July 19, 2021

Here’s the deal, the hybrid approach is dead on arrival. You can’t do it. Jim Rutherford screwed the Penguins over and then left. He torched the team’s ability to balance both the short and long term. He used up all the quality futures the team had to make lateral moves over and over again. He knew he wouldn’t be around for the consequences so he kept doing it. Thus, here we are.

There are only two paths right now. Go all in and go for the Cup with Crosby and Malkin or burn it down to the studs and start over. Trying to do both you put yourself in the dreaded middle ground of not being good enough to compete for a title and not bad enough to get your next franchise player. Mediocrity is purgatory in this league with how things are set up. Some teams can balance both winning and future, but the Penguins are definitely not one of them right now.

GMRH wanted to avoid sending assets to Seattle so as to prevent Kraken from taking an exposed player. Whether he bought into a bluff or not, Penguins’ moves/list are about asset management as much as player evaluation. That approach is what ownership wanted from GMJR successor.

— Rob Rossi (@Real_RobRossi) July 19, 2021

Asset management is incredibly important and why the Penguins are in the situation they are in. Rutherford’s asset management was non-existent. That being said, the start to this offseason has not been a great display of proper asset management from the new front office. Instead of losing one player for nothing from the Kraken the Penguins via the McCann trade will now lose two players for nothing. Using Jared McCann as a “cap dump” is pretty bad. You aren’t going to find 2.9M of value in free agency nor will you find that value packaging a 2023 7th round pick and Filip Hallander. Where are you finding a player to produce at a 60 point rate, play wing/center, play top power play, and have great defensive metrics for under 3M? You aren’t.

Tomas Tatar is one of few candidates in the free agent pool where you might get more value from the player than what you pay, but even that is likely to go above 2.9M. Players like Zach Hyman are going to go for ridiculous contracts based on the reporting. Brandon Saad? Phillip Danault Blake Coleman? Any of those pending contracts going to give you the value just given away? You’re paying more for a lateral move. That’s what Rutherford did and it can’t continue.



The futures acquired for McCann do nothing for the big picture (or little picture). Even the best of trades would make a hybrid approach nearly impossible for the Penguins. This half-assed approach of trading quality depth players away from the team for futures just for the sake of futures is not helping now or later.

The offseason is just beginning and there will definitely be more moves made, but if asset management is the focus, they already missed the mark with this first trade. Commit to the Cup or tear it down. Trying to do both is guaranteed failure.

Thanks for reading!

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