With the Pittsburgh Penguins entering the offseason for a third consecutive year without a playoff appearance, TribLive will offer Penguins A to Z, a player-by-player look at all 56 individuals signed to an NHL contract – including those whose deals do not begin until future seasons - with the organization.

Starting with Noel Acciari and going on through to Philip Tomasino (regrettably, there is no Z on the payroll), every player will be profiled in alphabetical order.

This series is scheduled to be published Mondays through Saturdays leading up until June 24, four days before the start of the NHL Draft. In the event of a transaction, that schedule will be altered as necessary.

(Note: All contract information courtesy of Puckpedia.)

Kevin Hayes

Position: Right winger

Shoots: Left

Age: 33

Height: 6-foot-5

Weight: 216 pounds

2024-25 NHL statistics: 64 games, 23 points (13 goals, 10 assists), 12:03 of average ice time per contest.

Contract: In the sixth year of a seven-year contract with a salary cap hit of $7,142,858. Pending unrestricted free agent in 2026

(As a condition of a trade between the St. Louis Blues and Philadelphia Flyers in 2023, the Flyers retain $3,571,429 of Hayes’ yearly cap hit for the remainder of the contract. Additionally, the final four years of this contract have a modified no-trade clause that allows Hayes to submit a 12-team no-trade list.)

Acquired: Trade, June 29, 2024

This season: In a lot of ways, the Penguins’ acquisition of Kevin Hayes from the Blues on the second day of the 2024 NHL Draft set the tone for what the 2024-25 season was about.

The Penguins’ future.

To be clear, adding a 30-something bottom-six forward whose best days were in his review mirror wasn’t about days to come. The second-round draft the Penguins acquired as part of the deal was.

Taking on Hayes was simply the price the Penguins had to pay for that asset.

After a somewhat productive start in which he generated four points (three goals, one assist) in the first eight games of the season, Hayes hit some rough patches.

In November, he missed eight consecutive games due to an undisclosed injury. Then in December, he was a healthy scratch for nine consecutive games.

To Hayes’ credit, he managed to level things off with his guile and offered some utility to the Penguins throughout the second half of the season.

Primarily deployed as a center, Hayes found time on both wings as well during five-on-five situations while deployed on the bottom three lines. As a center, he took the fourth-most faceoffs (453) on the squad, winning more than half of those draws (52.1%).

And he even helped boost the Penguins’ power play – which rebounded considerably in 2024-25 – as a net-front presence with this massive frame.

The future: Some much bigger things need to unfold with the Penguins this spring and summer that overshadow Hayes’ role with the club moving forward. Most notably, a new coach has to be installed, and with that, a new scheme.

How Hayes slots into those plans is anyone’s guess, just given how his career has trended in recent years. His two previous teams essentially abandoned him, including the Flyers, who were so eager to part ways, they offered to eat half of his salary cap hit for several years.

That isn’t to say Hayes, a one-time All-Star, can’t be useful. He definitely provided some benefit to the Penguins during a mostly lost season. And by many accounts, Hayes is a marvelous citizen and teammate who did what he could to keep the group upbeat as the losses piled up.

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But it would be generous to suggest that what Hayes contributed matched his salary cap hit, even if the Penguins were only on the hook for half of it. Having just turned 33 on Thursday, his skating, which wasn’t rapid to begin with, hasn’t gotten any better. And despite some size, he isn’t an overly physical presence.

At the same time, it would also be generous to suggest the Penguins are in line to be a playoff contender in 2025-26, just given the long-range trajectory president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas seems to have plotted for the franchise.

Keeping Hayes on the roster for the last year of his contract might just be congruent with that course.

Regardless, it was fair to wonder how Hayes fit in with the team when he was acquired. And it remains that way going into the offseason.