Damien Cox: Penguins have to decide between retooling and rebuilding, and they’ll do it without Brian Burke and Ron Hextall
Nature, as they say, is undefeated, and Sid the Kid is getting old. He’s still pretty great — and just finished putting up a 93-point season — but if Canada was putting together an Olympic squad today, would Crosby, the hero of 2010, still be on it? Debate that one with your friends.
Burke and Hextall were an intriguing pairing from the start. Burke, frequently impetuous during his executive career, seemed a fit for a team that wanted to keep winning after the sudden departure of Jim Rutherford. Hextall, on the other hand, came over from Philadelphia, where his philosophies of gradual growth and careful cap management were not appreciated. Plus, he had a reputation as a poor team player who didn’t like to share information.
The roster was top heavy. The Penguins had five players who scored 27 goals or more this season, but after that the team got very thin, very fast. The goaltending was weakened by injuries. Still, Burke and Hextall plunged forward, giving up draft picks at this year’s trade deadline while pointlessly adding veterans like Mikael Granlund, Nick Bonino and Dmitry Kulikov.
But the list of teams that have tried to avoid rebuilding, and then been reduced to rubble, is longer: Chicago, Vancouver and Philadelphia, among others. The problem for a team like Pittsburgh is how to get the process started. The Canucks felt powerless to even start rebuilding while the Sedin twins were still there, and the Blackhawks had to consider the needs of Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews before it was obvious to everyone that they could no longer afford to do so.
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