Mueller: Hextall's silence puts his future in doubt

One thing the Pittsburgh Penguins have reliably provided for the entirety of Sidney Crosby’s tenure is entertainment, and not just on the ice. Sure, the ends of the 2016 and 2017 playoff runs brought with them parades, but even when things didn’t go as planned, there was something else to look forward to.

Namely, Jim Rutherford’s address with the media on locker cleanout day. Rutherford relished the chance to speak about the team he had assembled, and he and Mike Sullivan would often end up giving significantly different opinions about the same subject. 

It was reliably great theater, in other words.

Why, then, has Ron Hextall not done so this year? 

Hextall isn’t Rutherford, of course. The latter was incapable of anything but brutal honesty when he sat down in front of a microphone. Rutherford loved to hold court and kept few, if any, secrets. 

By contrast, Hextall is guarded, a master of talking but saying nothing. That said, he spoke after last season’s bitterly disappointing first-round exit. That he didn’t this time suggests that his position with ownership might be tenuous, at best, and that he might not want to answer questions about decisions that won’t be his to make. 

I can’t blame Fenway Sports Group if they want to blow Hextall and Brian Burke out of town and install their own people. We know that FSG likes analytics, and while the Penguins have certainly not ignored the advanced numbers, Burke in particular has spoken of his fondness for “truculent” players, and Hextall said shortly after his hiring that he wanted to add some size and physicality to the team. 

The team’s new owners have no loyalty to Hextall or Burke, nor should they. If their respective visions for the franchise’s future don’t align, they should thank them for their service and send them on their way. In Burke’s case, there are already plenty of rumors floating around that his dismissal will be a matter of “when” and not “if.” That would fit, given that he hasn’t said anything publicly either, and he’s typically quite happy in front of a microphone. 

In Hextall’s case, FSG could easily say, “what have you done for us lately?” Hextall brought in Jeff Carter, which was good at first, then inexplicably extended his contract midway through this season, which was not. He also paid a premium, particularly in term length, for Brock McGinn. That also doesn’t look great. 

The Rickard Rakell deal looked like a solid addition at the deadline, but Rakell’s playoff impact was blunted by a Game 1 head injury that cost him nearly the entire Rangers series. As an unrestricted free agent, his future is cloudy.

Hextall was brought in presumably to continue to try and tweak a roster to make it championship-capable, while gradually overseeing something resembling a youth movement. There were numerous reasons that it didn’t work out, but the end result is what matters. With Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang poised to hit free agency, it stands to reason that FSG will want the team to get significantly younger around Sidney Crosby, and in a hurry, while still remaining competitive.

Is Hextall the right man for that job? Does he even want that job? We can only speculate because he hasn’t fielded any questions to that effect, or any questions at all. The most his name came up on locker cleanout day was when Letang indicated that he had made a pact with Hextall to keep all of their contract discussions private. 

Reports have also surfaced that Hextall was asked by FSG to write an essay detailing his vision for the team, and that Hextall declined, saying such a thing was more in his head and not something he’d prefer to put to paper. They insisted, and he relented. 

Putting aside for a minute the humorous nature of such a request, it’s perfectly reasonable for new ownership to get as detailed a view of Hextall as is possible. It would be foolish not to have a full picture of where his head is at, particularly given the fact that commingling the Penguins’ future goals and current roster reality.

The simplest part of the whole situation still looms largest, however. It has been a week since the Penguins were eliminated, and Ron Hextall still hasn’t talked to the media. Perhaps that tells us all we need to know about his future with the team.