Ron Hextall made it pretty clear Wednesday that he had no major issues with Tristan Jarry or the Penguins' coaching staff.
But if there was any lingering uncertainty about the front office's feelings on those matters, and a few others, Brian Burke removed it Thursday.
Emphatically.
As always.
He did not absolve Jarry of some culpability for the Penguins' six-game loss to the New York Islanders in Round 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs, but said some of the blame heaped on Jarry from outside the organization was misdirected.
And that Jarry was a primary reason the Penguins were even in the playoffs, let alone entering them as East Division champions.
"You can't hang it on Tristan, because the fact of the matter is that we wouldn't have been playing, except for Tristan," Burke said. "He got us in. He won the division for us. He was magnificent down the stretch and he played some real good hockey in the playoffs, as well.
"You can't hang it on one guy. You can find (other) culprits in Game 1. On a couple of goals that people hung on Tristan, you can find defensemen (making) mistakes on all of those goals. I'm not hanging it on goaltending."
No less important is that he insisted his confidence in Jarry remains intact despite Jarry's subpar performance at times against New York.
"It's not for (public-relations) purposes, either, to say that my faith in him has not been shaken," Burke said. "I said this at the time. People said, 'Is your goaltending good enough?' I'm like, 'We wouldn't be playing if Tristan hadn't played like he did down the stretch.' And Casey (DeSmith), too. Casey was really good, too."
While Jarry was the most popular target for public criticism after the Penguins failed to make it out of Round 1 for the third consecutive year, quite a bit was directed at Mike Sullivan and his staff, too.
None of it came from -- or is being echoed by -- management.
"I'm mystified and angered by even the suggestion that a coaching change was even considered here," Burke said. "We think (Sullivan) should win the Jack Adams (Award, as the NHL's top coach)."
Sullivan's longest-serving assistant, goalie coach Mike Buckley, was the subject of some harsh assessments from outside the organization, at least in part because Matt Murray did not perform to expectations during the qualifying round against Montreal a year earlier.
Burke, however, said the regular-season performance of the Penguins' goalies speaks to the quality of his work.
"He's the goalie coach who coached the goalies that won us a division title, but suddenly became a village idiot in the playoffs?" he said. "I don't think so. I think Mike Buckley did a good job."
Sullivan's rosters have been built on speed and skill, and Burke said that team-building tenet will not change as the Penguins try to add size and muscle before next season.
The objective, Burke said, will be to acquire "toughness that can play."
He added that Sullivan "absolutely" will have a say in any personnel moves Hextall makes, and that questions about whether Sullivan and the front office have divergent philosophies about such matters are unfounded.
"People think there's a split between me and (Hextall) and (Sullivan), that (Hextall) and I are in one camp and (Sullivan) is in another," he said. "That's not true. (Sullivan) would love to get bigger and tougher, but his only requirement is that they be able to play. Our DNA is 'Go, go go.' It's skill and speed. Would we like to augment that a bit with some toughness? Yeah. (Sullivan) is on board with that. We've spoken about it very candidly."
Their shared objective will be to assemble a roster capable of lasting longer in the playoffs than the Penguins have in any of the past three seasons, something Burke said was a reasonable goal a few weeks ago.
"I thought we could make some noise, which I would define as winning at least one round," he said. "I thought we played really well down the stretch, and I thought we played well in the playoffs."