He is looking to restart his career with a third team in three years.
The most significant outside addition made by the Pittsburgh Penguins this offseason was probably acquiring veteran forward Kevin Hayes from the St. Louis Blues in a salary dump trade.
Realistically speaking, the Penguins were probably more interested in the second-round pick they acquired as part of that deal, and Hayes was simply the cost it took to buy that selection.
Whatever the case, Hayes is now a Penguins for — presumably — the next two years at a very reduced salary cap number. A couple of years ago, Hayes would have been a nice player to have on your roster. He was pretty much a 20-goal, 50-point player per 82 games with a solid two-way game and a very useful contributor. The contract he signed in Philadelphia was excessive for the player he is, but he could help. Eventually, though, that contract became a burden and the Flyer dealt him to the Blues where he went on to have one of the worst seasons of his career.
That has led him to Pittsburgh and a third team in three different seasons.
Hayes met with the Pittsburgh media on Tuesday and discussed the ego shot that is, as well as his confidence to still play with talented players at a high level.
“It’s definitely an ego shot when you go on two teams in two years. But I’m a pretty confident person. I’ve been in the league for a pretty long time. I’ve had successful seasons. I know what I need to do to make sure my game works in this league. I’ll have a good opportunity in Pittsburgh to do that. I think instead of it being an ego shot, I’ll use it more as motivation to show those two teams that I can still play and produce in this league.”
The question is where he is going to play, and that is one of the things that is somewhat intriguing about him because he does have the flexibility and versatility to play all over the lineup. He can play wing, but his primary position is at center.
Obviously the first two center spots are filled with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.
The question then becomes whether or not he plays a third-line or fourth-line center role down the lineup.
General manager Kyle Dubas has already hinted at a possible fourth-line role, potentially bumping Noel Acciari to the wing.
That would likely mean that Lars Eller has the third-line center spot locked down, at least until the trade deadline when he gets packaged somewhere else.
In theory, Hayes should be an upgrade over what the Penguins were getting from Jeff Carter in a fourth-line role because, well, if he’s not an upgrade that presents an entirely different set of problems and questions for both Hayes and the Penguins. Questions like, “What happened to you, Kevin?” and “What were you thinking, Kyle?”
While upgrading your fourth-line center spot is not exactly a needle-mover for the team, any upgrade is still an upgrade.
When you look at Hayes’ play, especially during 5-on-5 play, within the context of the Blues (an objectively bad team) he was actually one of their most effective forwards. While his overall numbers were not great in comparison to the league, you have to keep in mind what he was surrounded by (not much). He was one of the Blues’ top forwards in terms of expected goals share, goal differential and expected goals against while also being tasked with playing a heavy defensive role. He led the team in defensive zone start percentage and was second only to Oskar Sundqvist in terms of having the lowest offensive zone start percentage.
He was put into tough spots, with not much help around him, and still managed to do okay.
The other thing that stood out when digging deeper into his numbers is that his individual goal and expected goal numbers were right in line with what he was doing during his peak years in the league. His 0.74 goals per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 play was his highest mark since the 2019-20 season, while his 0.73 individual expected goals per 60 minutes was the third-highest mark of his career.
Where his production took a huge hit was in his assist numbers, which could be a reflection of the players around him as much as it is on him.
I was not a fan of the move in the immediate aftermath, mostly because it was just another slow erosion of what salary cap flexibility you had for the 30 percent chance that maybe you get somebody in the second round that plays 100 games for you.
But maybe Hayes comes in rejuvenated and wants to prove some people wrong. Motivation is a hell of a thing. And maybe he is an upgrade and still has something left, to the point where you could again flip him for an additional asset at some point. It wouldn’t be the first time a team acquired a declining player on a salary dump, pumped up their value again, and then managed to flip them again.
There are some encouraging signs when you dig into his performance in St. Louis. Maybe he just needs the fresh start.
