PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – One provided an energy and grit no one else on the team could or would. Another is a rare, young scoring forward in the organization. Pens GM Ron Hextall explained Thursday why they left Brandon Tanev unprotected and traded Jared McCann.
“We set a price for Jared where we would move him if we got the right price,” Hextall said. “Toronto met that price. Part of that was knowing that we would probably would lose another player give us an opportunity to be cap compliant when we need to at the start of the season.”
Hextall estimates they were $3 to $3.5 million over the cap before losing those two players. There is also the Evgeni Malkin factor. While Hextall said Malkin is doing well, he will be out for the start of the season. That meant they wanted to protect 36-year-old Jeff Carter.
“It definitely had an impact,” Hextall said of Malkin’s offseason right knee surgery. “There is still some uncertainty with the beginning of the year. When we looked at our center position, its the position where we lacked the most depth up front. We felt it was important to protect that position. It had an impact on our list for sure.”
As for other facts as to why they protected who they did.
“You look at a lot of things,” Hextall said. “You look at a player’s age. You look at the contract. You look at the term of the contract, the AAV, the fit on your team, your depth in the organization. There was a lot that went into our final decision. There is no question that Geno affected our thought process for sure.”
Pens were going to lose someone valuable only permitted to protect seven forwards, three defenseman and one goalie. Hextall joked he would like the process more if he had a couple of more protection spots.
“Very hard decisions to make obviously, but in the end we had tough decisions,” Hextall said Thursday. “In the end we had to do what was best for the organization short-term and long-term.”