Hextall: 'Tough decisions to make' on how to get under salary cap taken in Cranberry, Pa. (Penguins)

TAYLOR HAASE / DKPS

Ron Hextall meets with reporters Friday in Cranberry

CRANBERRY, Pa. -- Ron Hextall was honest when he was asked following Day 2 of the Penguins' training camp at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex if he had a plan to get his team under the NHL's $82.5 million salary cap before the start of the regular season: He just doesn't know yet. 

The front office has certainly thought about their possible avenues, but they haven't worked out which avenue they'll take yet.

"Plans, not necessarily," Hextall said. "Obviously there's some mechanics that we'll have to do to get under. We have good depth. We'll see how the preseason games go. We've got some tough decisions to make. Make no mistake."

A trade, obviously, is still an option, and one that Hextall didn't rule out exploring. The trouble with a trade is that there are few teams currently willing and capable of taking on a salary dump in a trade. Nearly a third of the league is in the situation the Penguins are in of needing to shed some salary. That raises the market value of taking on cap space, and doesn't give a team like the Penguins much bargaining power in a deal.

"There's a lot of teams over," Hextall observed. "I guess sometimes you kind of wonder what they're going to do. We're obviously in that situation. There's only a few suitors in terms of wanting to take on money. So it's a tough market right now, the last couple of years with basically a flat cap has been challenging for all of us for sure. You guys know what we went through this summer with our guys and trying to fit everybody in. It's a tough market right now. Yes, it does make it hard to make a move."

Luckily for the Penguins, a trade isn't necessary to get cap compliant, as I laid out earlier in the summer. The Penguins would need to re-assign five of those more borderline depth players to Wilkes-Barre, like Drew O'Connor, Radim Zohorna, Drake Caggiula, Josh Archibald, Alex Nylander, P.O Joseph, Mark Friedman or Ty Smith. Plus all of the rookies like Sam Poulin, Valtteri Puustinen and the more obvious veteran Wilkes-Barre depth like Taylor Fedun and Xavier Ouellet.

That would only just barely get the Penguins under the cap, not leaving any wiggle room for recalls once the season starts. It would also lead to some tough decisions, with multiple factors at play.

One significant factor is the waiver wire. Of those depth players (not the rookies) mentioned, only O'Connor and Smith remain exempt from waivers. The rest would need to be exposed to waivers first before being sent down, and that could be risky. Do the Penguins feel comfortable risking someone like Nylander to waivers, and potentially losing him for nothing? How much better does Smith have to be than someone like Friedman or Joseph to even have a shot at making the roster, given that Smith is the lone option on defense to get sent down risk-free?

I asked Hextall if those players like Smith and O'Connor are inherently at a disadvantage in their push to make the NHL roster, given their waivers-exempt status. He didn't rule out the Penguins carving out a spot for those players if they earn it, but he acknowledged that the waiver wire is certainly a point of discussion within the front office.

"We want to put the best team on the ice opening night that we can," he told me. "If they're part of it, we're going to try to find a way. So you look at all your options and then you start to break them down and talk them through with your staff and the coaches and make those decisions when the time is right. But that's certainly a discussion that will be part of it."

While there are still some decisions to be made, Hextall said that they are "happy with our group" entering the season. 

A lot of that confidence in the group stems from confidence in the core of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang and their ability to lead this team in their 17th year together.

"With Sid, Tanger and Geno this summer, we felt like this group can still go on a run and do a lot of damage," Hextall said. "I see Geno right now and he's a hungry guy. Wow, that's pretty good. We just sign him to a four-year deal and I think he's been here for a month. He looks like a beast right now. Letang the same. They're hungry guys, this group is hungry. We all know Sid. So I'm really excited about where we are right now as a team. The feeling around the room, there's a lot of hunger. There's going to be some good fights for jobs. And I like where we're at."

He knows it's still a difficult road ahead.

"It's hard to win in this league," Hextall said. "It's hard to win a round in the playoffs. It's certainly hard to win the Stanley Cup. But that's our mission."

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MORE FROM TRAINING CAMP

• Hextall said that the team has had discussions with Tristan Jarry regarding a contract extension as he enters the last year of his contract. He said that he doesn't think that there's "real urgency" to get something done soon, and that he doesn't anticipate contract discussions continuing during the season. In case you missed it in Friday Insider, Jarry told me one-on-one that he "definitely" wants a deal done before the regular season ends if both sides can come to an agreement.

• Hextall said that he likes where Jarry is mentally right now.

"You know, he's been through some things that you go through to make yourself a better player and a better athlete," he said of Jarry. "I think maturity-wise Jars is in a much better place to handle things than he was a year and a half ago. And probably in another year and a half it'll be even more so. So I think Jars has grown a lot and we're certainly happy with him."

• The 31 forwards, 21 defensemen and six goaltenders attending camp were divided into three teams on Day 2, with only some minor shuffling of the prospect invites from the Day 1 groups. Here is how the different groups lined up:

TEAM 1

Jake Guentzel - Sidney Crosby - Valtteri Puustinen
Drew O'Connor - Ryan Poehling - Rickard Rakell
Alex Nylander - Sam Poulin - Danton Heinen

(Jamie Devane, Brooklyn Kalmikov rotating in)

Marcus Pettersson - Jeff Petry
Ty Smith - Chad Ruhwedel
Jon Lizotte - Taylor Fedun/Nolan Collins

TEAM 2

Drake Caggiula - Evgeni Malkin - Bryan Rust
Jason Zucker - Radim Zohorna - Josh Archibald
Raivis Ansons - Jonathan Gruden - Kyle Olson/Ty Glover

Brian Dumoulin - Mark Friedman
Chris Ortiz - Mitch Reinke
Xavier Ouellet - Jack St. Ivany

TEAM 3

Filip Hallander - Jeff Carter - Kasperi Kapanen
Brock McGinn - Teddy Blueger - Lukas Svejkovsky
Nathan Legare - Jordan Frasca - Corey Andonovski/Sam Houde

P.O Joseph - Kris Letang
Isaac Belliveau - Jan Rutta

Ryan McCleary - Josh Maniscalco

• Teams 2 and 3 scrimmaged, with Team 2 winning 4-1. Team 2's goals came from Radim Zohorna, Jason Zucker, Malkin and Drake Caggiula, while Team 3's lone goal came from Jordan Frasca. Team 2 goaltender Dustin Tokarski pitched a shutout in the half of the game he played for the second day in a row. I have more on Tokarski here.

• Obviously these line combinations probably aren't going to be in your Game 1 lineup. A lot of the configurations are a typical pairing of two players with a prospect or depth piece mixed in. Still, it's hard not to notice that Valtteri Puustinen fits in well with the Crosby/Jake Guentzel line. I asked Crosby about what it's been like playing with Puustinen, and he had good things to say.

"He's skilled," Crosby told me. "He's got great hands. He can see the ice. ... Hopefully we'll get better every day."

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• Zohorna and Zucker have looked pretty good together too. I spoke one-on-one with Zucker for a story I'll run this weekend, but I also asked him for his observations on Zohorna.

"He looks great," Zucker said. "He's moving really well. He's making some good plays. He's such a big body. He's so long, he can make a lot of plays. He can get on guys quickly because his reach is there. I think he looks great. So hopefully he can continue that, he's going to be a big part of this team moving forward."

• I mentioned it before here, but Zohorna is visibly faster, something he worked on this summer. Sullivan has been impressed with just where Zohorna is physically at this point.

"This might have been the best start to camp that's he's had since he's been here," Sullivan said. "So that's really encouraging. He looks a step faster. He looks a bit stronger on the puck. And I'm sure he's more comfortable in his surroundings, he's been over here now for a couple of years. He has relationships with the players on the team. He's familiar with the coaches. And I'm sure that helps as well. But I think his fitness level is the best that I've seen it to this point, which is something that we've pushed him to get better at."

• Here's Bryan Rust on his camp linemate Caggiula, if he can reach a new level this season, and suburban dad stuff:

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• Sullivan called Caggiula "pretty good so far."

"He brings a ton of speed," Sullivan added. "He's tenacious on the puck."

• I asked Sullivan for his thoughts on Alex Nylander's game and what Nylander needs to do to get a shot at the NHL level.

"He's got real good offensive instincts," Sullivan said. "I'm trying to familiarize myself a little bit more with his game. I'd like to reserve judgment until I see him a little bit more and get him in some exhibition games. But we know he's a skilled player. We know he's got good offensive instincts. We're going to push him to play with more pace, because we think he's capable there. And we'll see what his game looks like on both sides of the puck. But his first couple of days, I think he's been pretty good."

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Matt Cullen was back in town on Friday. He wasn't working on the ice for any of the practice sessions but he was up in the management box throughout the day, and took some time to catch up with some of his former teammates and some of the arena staff afterward.

• Defense prospect Nolan Collins remained in a non-contact jersey. He told me in rookie camp that he suffered a shoulder injury in his OHL team's training camp. Defense prospect Owen Pickering, who was sidelined for all of rookie camp with an undisclosed upper-body injury, remained off the ice. Defense prospect Colin Swoyer didn't skate. He left Day 1's practice toward the end of the conditioning work, with an athletic trainer looking at what was either his foot or lower leg before he went back to the locker room. Sulivan said Friday that Swoyer was day-to-day with a lower-body injury.

• I also asked Zucker about Teddy Blueger's fight in Da Beauty League since he played in the league this summer as well, he seemed amused by it.

"I can't believe he's chucking fists out in Da Beauty League," he said with a laugh. "That's one of a kind, I've never seen that before."

• There's a USHL junior tournament going on at the Lemieux Complex this week, so a lot of NHL scouts are in town. I saw former Penguins defenseman Ville Siren hanging around the rink, he's now the Blue Jackets' head of amateur scouting. There's a large contingent of the Penguins' own amateur scouts here for the event as well.

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