As the NHL playoffs wind down, the offseason is on the minds of a significant percentage of hockey fans. There’s lots of news coming down the pipe in the next few weeks – awards winners, the 2022 Hall of Fame class, entry draft, free agency. So without further preamble, here is Part 1 of a two-part reader mailbag.
If Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang were to move on, how many years would it take for the Penguins to become contenders again? Is their farm system too far gone to get back into contention while Sidney Crosby is still playing? — Tyler D.
The short answer is yes. The farm system is too far gone to imagine any sort of instant turnaround. But let’s start with the obvious opening salvo: If you have the consistent record of success that Pittsburgh has, your prospect pipeline is naturally going to be depleted anyway because it usually means you’re never drafting anywhere near the top 10, where the blue-chip youngsters are found. Moreover, while your championship window of opportunity to compete is open, it’s natural – and even expected – that you sacrifice high draft choices and quality prospects to get you the reinforcements that might help you win again.
The Penguins have actually perfected the template of how to manage the inevitable ebb and flow of professional hockey. Twice in the team’s history they’ve bottomed out and secured the cornerstones of a rebuild. In current GM Ron Hextall, the Penguins have someone in place that’s demonstrated the necessary patience to play the draft and develop game. It’s going to have to come, sooner or later. The problem is always the same and usually starts with ambitious, overreaching ownership. Ownership patience often runs out faster than the timeline needed to execute a thorough rebuild. It doesn’t help matters either that the NHL is now up to 32 teams. It just makes it fractionally more complicated every season to land in the winner’s circle. On average, you get about three championships per century. The Penguins have won five Stanley Cups since 1990. Not sure when No. 6 might occur. If Malkin and Letang stay, there’s a shot in 2023. If they don’t, it could be a while.
What would it take for the Devils to unite the Triforce and get Quinn Hughes to New Jersey with Luke and Jack? — Tyler I.
Let’s begin by stating the obvious. Quinn Hughes wouldn’t sign a six-year, $47.1 million extension with Vancouver last October if he didn’t want to be in Vancouver for the foreseeable future. I do understand the contract was negotiated when Jim Benning was GM and Travis Green coach, and things have changed since then.
New management sounds as if it’ll be open to any and all changes that can change the current dressing-room dynamic. But usually, even teams that go all scorched-earth tend to declare players in their young core untouchable. Given his skill set, and how important a skilled, crafty defenseman is in the modern NHL, it’s hard to imagine any scenario under which they would consider moving him.
Now, if we want to drift down a hypothetical path, this may well be the time the Devils are most able to offer the sort of package that a Quinn Hughes deal would require, given that they do have the No. 2 overall pick in the 2022 draft — and have publicly stated a willingness to trade it so they can get better faster.
Of course, the Devils can turn that pick into an asset and then ultimately trade the asset as well, as part of a larger deal. I can see the Canucks moving on from J.T. Miller, Brock Boeser, Conor Garland, and Tanner Pearson. But I can’t imagine any scenario under which they’d move on from Quinn Hughes.
Is there a chance we see blockbuster type deals this offseason? If so, what might those be? — Jared M.
You hope so, right? But I was speaking to a long-time executive last week and he raised that very point as a possibility — that while normally the draft is a dud when…
Read More: The Penguins without Malkin and Letang, uniting the Hughes brothers: Duhatschek