Although it should come as no surprise, Pittsburgh Penguins ownership consulted their biggest stars before making the recent hires of Ron Hextall as GM and Brian Burke as President of Hockey Operations. The Athletic’s Rob Rossi writes that Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin were informed of the Hextall-Burke possibility and endorsed the move, according to sources close to the players.
While owners Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle typically do not intrude on hockey operations matters, the one exception over the years has been an insistence on keeping Crosby and Malkin in Pittsburgh at all costs. This why the pair, despite being 33 and 34 years old, respectively, were consulted on a front-office move that could outlast either’s career. Ownership’s lone mandate to Hextall and Burke is that they would like Crosby and Malkin to retire as Penguins if they so choose.
Crosby is already signed through 2024-25 and has never given the team any reason to want to move him. Malkin, however, has not been as consistent and will be a free agent after next season. He has previously expressed a desire to sign on for three more years in Pittsburgh at the conclusion of his current contract to line up with the expiration of Crosby’s deal, allowing the two iconic Penguins to potentially retire together. Whether this is the same expectation shared by Hextall and Burke remains to be seen, but it appears as though the duo have been asked by their new bosses to treat Crosby and Malkin differently than the rest of the roster.
Interestingly, that even includes defenseman Kris Letang. Rossi reports that previous GM Jim Rutherford had been told that any trade involving Letang would need to be approved by ownership. However, Hextall and Burke are not operating under the same mandate. Rutherford had allegedly been gauging the trade interest in Letang around the league prior to his resignation and Hextall and Burke may be similarly interested in moving the veteran defenseman, whose expensive contract expires after the 2021-22 season. While Lemieux is still believed to prefer extending Letang, it seems he would be OK with moving the career Penguin “the right way.”
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