Hextall: "Our Plan Is To Continue On Trying To Win the Stanley Cup"

Takeaways from Penguins general manager Ron Hextall's 2021-22 season-ending media availability:
- The Penguins feel like they can continue to be a contender despite the disappointing finish
- Moving forward, the goal is the same: win the Stanley Cup
- Bryan Rust was the first piece of the puzzle to fall into place
- The focus is now on signing Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang
- Once their situations are clarified, the Penguins will go from there

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When a team is eliminated in the First Round of the playoffs, obviously it's hard to feel good about the season.
But when Ron Hextall really steps back and looks at how the Penguins handled the adversity they faced from the very beginning - getting off to a strong start without Sidney Crosby and Malkin, and then rising to every challenge they faced from there - he's impressed by how resilient, hard-working and close-knit the group was.
And although they ultimately fell in seven games to the New York Rangers, the Penguins still feel confident in their team.
"Obviously, we were close. There were some circumstances there which dictated that we didn't come out on the winning end of it, unfortunately," Hextall said. "But we felt like we were in it, and we feel like we had a good enough team where we could have gone on a run here. Obviously at the end, you got to get it done. But our plan is to continue on trying to win the Stanley Cup."
The Fenway Sports Group is completely on board with that plan, with Hextall saying they are totally committed to winning, and so is the entire management group and coaching staff.
"We're moving forward here trying to be as good as we can be, and be a contender," Hextall said.

When it comes to crafting a team that can continue to be a contender, Hextall repeatedly referred to the process as a puzzle, as they have to try and address certain areas while making sure everything fits under the salary cap. And Bryan Rust is the first piece to fall into place.
Over the weekend, the Penguins were able to sign the 30-year-old winger
to a six-year contract extension
with an average annual value of $5.125 million. To lock up a player who has been such a valuable member of this organization to such a team-friendly deal was a huge win for the big picture moving forward.
"That was an important signing for us, for sure," Hextall said. "We have a certain amount of cap space left, and we feel very comfortable about where he came in. His deal, it's a fair deal. We obviously stretched it out on term, and that helped us a little bit with the AAV. It was a number that we could both live with, and we're happy with it, and happy to have Bryan for the next six years."
Now, Pittsburgh's main priority is signing Malkin and Letang to extensions of their own. While Hextall reiterated that he doesn't negotiate through the media, he said that there have been recent discussions with the superstar center and franchise defenseman, and those will continue. There is no timeline, but Hextall said they will hopefully come to agreements at some point, as Malkin and Letang
have been vocal that they want to stay here
.
"We would like to sign both players," Hextall said. "They've both been here 16 years. Geno's obviously been a great player, certainly one of the best players in the history of the game, and we'd like to keep him as a Pittsburgh Penguin for the rest of his career. In a perfect world, Geno retires a Penguin, and I think Tanger's the same. These two, they're generational players. They don't come along very often. We'd like to keep them here through the end of their careers."
When asked whether Malkin, who turns 36 on July 31, and Letang, who turned 35 on April 24, have different ideas than the Penguins when it comes to term, Hextall said those are the types of things that will remain internal.
"What I can tell you is they're both great athletes," Hextall said. "They've both been here a long time. They're both performing at a high level right now, and we'd certainly like to have them in the mix in September."
The Penguins are currently operating from a top-down approach, which means all of their attention is currently focused on taking care of those two. They're two MAJOR pieces of the puzzle, and once the Penguins have clarity with their situations, they can move forward with a plan. But in the meantime, everything else - like whether they need to make changes behind Tristan Jarry on the depth chart, and if they re-sign restricted free agents like Danton Heinen and Kasperi Kapanen - is pretty much on hold.
"We'll see where guys like Tanger and Geno end up, and then we'll figure the rest out from there," Hextall said. "There's just a lot of hypotheticals in terms of cap space and what we can add at the different positions."
Other notes:
- Hextall said that Rust had a minor procedure done on his knee a few days ago. "It was just a cleanup," he said.
- Hextall named Valtteri Puustinen, Kasper Bjorkqvist, Filip Hallander, P.O Joseph and Sam Poulin, "who took his game to another level over the past 55 games," as prospects out of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton who could potentially start next season in Pittsburgh.
"It's comforting to us that we have a few kids that are kind of on the verge of coming up and being ready to play at this level, but it's not forcing them into this level, because you might as well leave them down there," Hextall said.
- Hextall was asked whether he was surprised that there was never anything called on Jacob Trouba's elbow to Crosby's head that knocked the captain out of Game 5 and sidelined him for Game 6, either during the game or in the form of supplementary discipline later on. Here is his full response:
"That's a good question. It's a tough one. The first shift of the first game, with Jake (Guentzel) there, I felt like that one - that was pretty bad. I felt like there was some intent there. Sid's, I think there was intent, and I think it's arguable whether there was an intent to injure or it was just intent to not let him get to the net, but it's certainly unfortunate. I think that with headshots I believe we as a league have to continue to talk and evaluate where we are with headshots. Because it's an issue that's prevalent in sports, and we need to continue to move forward and try to better our system where we try to get them out as much as possible, hopefully at some point completely out."