Oh how the mighty have fallen. After dominating the league for around a full decade and winning consecutive Stanley Cups in 2016 and 2017, the Pittsburgh Penguins have made their gradual descent towards irrelevance.
Ever since winning their last Cup, their only playoff series win has been beating the Philadelphia Flyers in six games in 2018. They followed that up with a six-game loss to the Washington Capitals, a sweep at the hands of the New York Islanders in 2019, an embarrassing four-game defeat to the Montreal Canadiens in the 2020 Cup Qualifiers, and most recently, falling in six games to the Islanders again.
Not even finishing first place in the East Division this year could save them from another underwhelming playoff appearance. And honestly, the way they lost this year was absolutely humiliating.
It is not as if they were a bad team, and you could even argue that they were better than the Islanders in some aspects. But they continually shot themselves in the foot, by means of lackluster goaltending, a boneheaded move by Tristan Jarry that resulted in the game-winning overtime goal for the Islanders in Game 5, and lapses in the defensive zone.
There are some people out there who may think it would be wise for the Penguins to run it back with their core once more, since they may have won the series without their egregious errors. But let’s face the facts, this team has been trending nowhere but downhill for four years now. And is it really smart to keep rolling with a team that continually kills their own chances of winning?
Well let me put it to you this way, the Penguins have some tough decisions to make this summer. They do not have any important unrestricted free agents this offseason, but next offseason is what they have to think about right now.
Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, Bryan Rust, and Jeff Carter are set to hit the open market in the summer of 2022. Meaning that they are eligible for contract extensions this offseason, and Ron Hextall needs to start thinking about whether it is worth extending all, some, or even any of them.
I have heard rumors that the players want to stay and that the organization would like to extend Malkin and Letang. But they should not be so fast.
I especially would not re-sign Letang if I were Hextall. He is 34 years old and has a history of significant injuries, and chances are he is not going to make this team much better moving forward, let alone increase their chances of winning another Cup.
This might be considered blasphemy in the eyes of Penguins fans, but I absolutely would not extend Malkin right now, and honestly, I would lean toward letting him walk next year. He also is 34 and is coming off one of his worst years from a production standpoint. Yes, he used to be one of the best players in the NHL and was one of the main reasons the Penguins were so good for so long, but his time has passed him by.
Carter was brought in as a rental for this and next year only and Hextall should not even think about bringing him back. Even Rust, who has broken out in the past two seasons, is 29 and not a player I am itching to extend if I am Hextall.
You probably get where I am going with this. The current core of the Penguins is outdated and it is time for them to focus on the future.
Even Tristan Jarry, who I thought had a real chance to be special for them, has flopped and proven to be unreliable. By virtue of aging and some critical mistakes by Jim Rutherford, this team is all but done, and every player needs to be expendable to them.
They are at the point at which they should not even prioritize holding onto Sidney Crosby for dear life. Yes, I just said that.
I am not saying that they should actively shop their best players such as Crosby, Malkin, and Jake Guentzel, that will only take down their value in trade circles. But they should be open to offers for all of them, and if some team offers a king’s ransom for any one of those players, especially Malkin, they must take it.
That would especially be worthwhile since they have only picked in the first round of the draft TWICE since 2013. And one of those first round picks was Kasperi Kapanen, who they traded away, only to trade another first rounder to re-acquire.
Although I said I blame mostly Jim Rutherford and the aging of the players for the demise of the Penguins, they should not even rule out firing Mike Sullivan. They just need a fresh start.
Yes, the Penguins might endure several seasons of painful losing if they were to blow it up like I am suggesting they should. But sooner or later, every team has to completely start over, and the Penguins are at or near that point.
