The trade
Penguins get: Center Kevin Hayes, second-round pick 2025
Get blues: Future considerations
Sean Gentille: When the Penguins entered the offseason, it was clear they needed a viable third center. Lars Eller brought a necessary piece to their lineup (and locker room) last season, but at this point in his career, he’s only on defense. The biggest problem behind Pittsburgh’s decline in recent years has been a lack of viable secondary scoring options. Former GM Ron Hextall was to blame for that. Something had to change.
In that regard, signing Hayes makes sense. Pittsburgh needed options and Hayes fits the bill. But only just. If we’re a few days into July and he’s their most important signing, they’ll have failed.
The main problem is that Hayes’ point production and overall effectiveness as an offensive player have declined quite dramatically over the past few seasons, starting with 2022-23 when he fell out of favor with Flyers coach John Tortorella. St. Louis offered him at half price before last season, so Philadelphia kept half his salary and generally had him play in a bottom-six position on a team on the brink of the playoffs. The end result was 29 points in 79 games. His teammates have been a problem, and that will likely be the case with Pittsburgh, too. He’s a player who feels like a borderline third lineman, and his projections back up that assessment.
There are reasons not to begrudge the Penguins this. Hayes, as I said, offers them a fallback plan. At $3.57 million, he doesn’t break their salary cap, either, and the second-round boon is nice considering how GM Kyle Dubas continues to try to rebuild their youth base. It doesn’t make them any worse this season, and it makes them a little better going forward.
St. Louis, on the other hand, is coming out of a contract that made no sense to extend anyway, and without withholding any salary. You can’t ask for more than that.
Pittsburgh Class: C+
St. Louis Class: C+
Dom Luszczyszyn: The Penguins entered the offseason with a large hole at the third-line center position, so it’s no surprise that they wasted no time filling it. I just don’t think Kevin Hayes was the right answer.
First of all, the oldest team in the league isn’t getting any younger here. Hayes is 32 and past his prime. Last year, he averaged a career-low 1.35 points per 60 minutes in five-on-five situations and couldn’t really drive the game offensively. He didn’t get into the zone as often as he did in previous years and, most importantly, he couldn’t create many passes. Playmaking was once a big strength of Hayes’s, but his chance-assist rate dropped from 4.1 per 60 minutes to 2.0 with the Blues, according to Corey Sznajder data.
Part of that is due to Hayes’ role lower in the lineup – he didn’t have many talented shooters to pass to. His most frequent teammates were Alexei Toropchenko and Kasperi Kapanen, so he deserves some leniency on offense. Still, that situation is unlikely to change in Pittsburgh, considering the team’s depth issues every year beyond the bottom six. It suggests that Hayes isn’t an offensive driver in his own right.
At least Hayes showed last season that he can hold his own defensively in that role, but his relative defensive stats should be viewed with caution given the ease of use. He doesn’t have much experience in that regard.
This is exactly why the Blues had to make a concession to the Penguins to get rid of Hayes. He’s not worth his current salary cap, even if the Flyers still keep half of it, and the price for that favor was a second-round pick in 2025. This agreement turns this deal from “What are you doing, Pittsburgh?” to “OK, whatever.”
Hayes may not be the solution to Pittsburgh’s problems, and from that perspective, this doesn’t seem ideal for a team that missed the playoffs last season. But a free second-round pick is a free second-round pick, and that’s why this deal works for both sides.
Pittsburgh Class: B
St. Louis Class: B
(Photo: Jeff Curry / USA Today)
