Hextall Finally Fired after Postseason Streak Comes to an End

On Friday, April 14th, at 11:14 AM, it was announced that the Pittsburgh Penguins cleaned house, relieving General Manager Ron Hextall, Assistant General Manager Chris Pryor, and President of Hockey Operations Brian Burke of their duties. After missing the playoffs for the first time in 16 years, changes needed to be made.

Fenway Sports Group principal owner John Henry, and chairman Tom Werner, issued a statement: "...While this season has been disappointing, we believe in our core group of players and the goal of contending for the Stanley Cup has not changed." So, what does this mean? Well, for one, it means that new management will stay committed to the core (Sidney Crosby, Kris Letang, and Evgeni Malkin) instead of tearing everything down and starting a rebuild.

It was also announced that the search for new hockey operations leadership will begin immediately- which is good, as Pittsburgh has a lot of roster holes to fill this off-season. The roster currently looks like this:

Guentzel - Crosby - Rust

                 - Malkin - Rakell

               - Granlund -

                 - Carter -

                 - Letang

Pettersson - Petry

Joseph - Rutta

DeSmith

With just over 20 million left in cap space, a competent general manager should be able to retool and, hopefully, be competitive in the 2023-24 season.