Tim Benz: If Pens fans are skeptical of Hextall-Burke duo, praise from Philadelphia may help

Some Penguins fans may be a bit slow to fully embrace Ron Hextall as the team’s new general manager because of his history with the Philadelphia Flyers.

Or, perhaps better phrased, quicker to turn on him if he’s not an instant success.

That said, some of the loudest approvals of the hire — and highest praise of Hextall himself — seem to be coming from Philadelphia.

Even though the team he once played for fired him in 2018 after just four years as the general manager there.

Not only are media types who covered Hextall in Philly giving the thumbs up to the addition of Hextall at PPG Paints Arena. But they also approve of the seemingly odd marriage with newly inked president of hockey operations Brian Burke.

“It’s remarkable to me. You’ve got a couple of Clydesdales leading the wagon now,” Al Morganti said Tuesday during a guest appearance on 93.7 The Fan’s “PM Team.”

Morganti is an analyst on Flyers games doing the pre- and post-game shows. He has covered Philadelphia sports on SportsRadio WIP and other outlets for decades, as well as formerly being part of ESPN hockey broadcasts.

He acknowledged that Hextall and Burke (a former GM in Vancouver, Anaheim and Toronto) have very different management styles. Burke is known for his impatient, win-now mentality and for being very quotable with the media.

Even if that relationship can be volatile at times.

Hextall quickly built a reputation in Philadelphia for wanting to draft and develop slowly and for being reticent to make “the big swing” trades.

In other words, the kinds of deals that accompany the resumes of his Pittsburgh predecessor Jim Rutherford — and Burke himself.

Hextall is also regarded as being much more reluctant with the press than either of those two.

“He’s not going to answer much. He likes to run a closed-door operation,” Morganti said. “It’s tough in Philadelphia. It may be different (in Pittsburgh). It certainly will be blunted because Burke is so out front. A lot of those duties Ron doesn’t like to do, he won’t have to do in Pittsburgh.”

Hextall’s slow and steady mentality may have caused his demise out east. Ownership and the fans grew impatient to end a Stanley Cup drought that dates back to 1975.

It’s a dry spell that even predates the Pirates’ World Series slump by four years if you are keeping score at home.

Oh, and trust me, I am.

Yet that long play was a course the Flyers franchise apparently charted for Hextall from the beginning of his tenure in 2014.

“The Flyers fired Ron Hextall because he was following through on doing what he had promised to do,” Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Mike Sielski also told the “PM Team” Tuesday. “He was leading a rebuilding effort. He was taking his time doing it. And with good reason. The franchise had hollowed out over time. And its farm system was barren, and it needed a reset.”

The other odd dynamic is that Burke is renowned for building heavy, big, abrasive hockey teams. Or “truculent,” as he calls them.

Whereas Hextall’s Flyers teams got away from their “Broad Street Bully” reputation under his watch. Ironic for a guy who was the closest thing to a goon at the goaltender position we’ve seen, aside from Billy Smith.

As ESPN.com tracked, “If you look at the Flyers’ penalty minutes per game over the past 15 seasons, Hextall’s run from 2014-18 and the three seasons that followed his firing incorporate the bottom seven spots.”

There is a natural correlation to the league-wide dip in fighting and acceptance of dirty hits in those numbers. But Philadelphia embraced and welcomed that culture more than just about any place in the NHL. And the players Hextall brought in accelerated the decline.

As of now, it doesn’t sound as if Hextall is planning to make any major personality changes in Pittsburgh immediately.

“We are going to do everything we can to make this team better,” Hextall said on 105.9 The X Wednesday. “There are things we can tweak. But inevitably there is a crossroads coming when your three best players are getting up there. But we are going to try to stay as competitive as possible.”

During that interview with TribLive’s Mark Madden, Hextall expressed a belief that any concerns about his fit in Pittsburgh — or with Burke — are misguided.

“We are going to work together. We are a team,” Hextall said. “We are going to make decisions. I really like having a guy beside me to run things by. A guy who has been in the seat. You haven’t been in the hot seat until you are in it.

“I like challenging. Whether it’s an amateur or pros counting meeting, I challenge my scouts. And I like when people challenge me. I’m very open to ‘Burkie’ challenging me. And I’m going to challenge him. We are both competitive. And I think we’re going to have a terrific relationship.”

How exactly the organizational flowchart works and who gets credit — or, more importantly, blame — for how trades, signings and picks pan out is still for debate.

But if folks in Philadelphia seem to think that the Penguins might make something work that couldn’t happen down the Turnpike … eh, I’ll take that as a start.

TribLive’s Seth Rorabaugh joins me for Thursday’s hockey podcast. We look at the hires of Burke and Hextall in terms of immediate moves, long-range team building, goaltending views and organizational structure.