With the Pittsburgh Penguins entering the offseason after a brief return to the postseason, TribLive will offer Penguins A to Z, a player-by-player look at all 53 individuals signed to an NHL contract — including those whose deals do not begin until future seasons — with the organization.
Starting with veteran Noel Acciari and going on through to prospect Bill Zonnon, every player will be profiled in alphabetical order.
This series is scheduled to be published every day until June 24, two 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: 34
Height: 6-foot-3
Weight: 217 pounds
2025-26 NHL regular season statistics: 28 games, eight points (four goals, four assists), 12:28 of average ice time per contest
Contract: In the final year of a seven-year contract with a salary cap hit of $7,142,858. Pending unrestricted free agent on July 1
(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: Kevin Hayes needed a lot to go right for him to have a positive 2025-26 season. But everything went wrong right from the start.
On the first day of training camp (Sept. 18), he hustled after a puck along the boards during a drill and was slammed into the wall by defenseman Ryan Graves. Hayes suffered a left shoulder injury that never quite healed and largely hindered him for the entire season.
Formally placed on injured reserve when the regular season opened, Hayes did not play a game until Nov. 8.
With the Penguins dealing with a variety of injuries to their forward ranks throughout November, Hayes filled as a center and left winger on all four lines between Nov. 8 and Dec. 23. In 21 consecutive games over that span, Hayes had five points (three goals, two assists).
Arguably, the highlight of Hayes’ season came during a 4-3 home shootout win against the Montreal Canadiens that ended a hideous eight-game losing streak. The Penguins, who struggled all season long in shootouts, deployed Hayes as their first shooter in the shootout and he scored on a change-up wrister against Canadiens rookie goaltender Jakub Dobes.
kevin hayes shootout goal was a beauty pic.twitter.com/vmGfedgz27
— xx jo (extend evgeni malkin) (@chinny_crosby) December 22, 2025
For the rest of the campaign, Hayes only saw the ice sporadically as he dressed for only seven of the team’s final 46 games of the regular season. During the postseason, Hayes was scratched for all six of the team’s games in a first-round series loss to the Flyers.
The future: There wasn’t an abundance of anticipation that Hayes would contribute a great deal to the Penguins this past season, even before he was injured in training camp.
Never blessed with speed, that attribute did not improve as he got deeper into his 30s. And whatever limited physicality Hayes ever offered was hindered by his injury.
And while Hayes has plenty of experience as a veteran of 12 NHL seasons, his guile wasn’t enough for him to compensate for his physical limitations.
But Hayes found other ways to contribute in 2025-26, particularly off the ice. As a universally popular member of the team, Hayes provided guidance to several of the team’s younger players, such as Ben Kindel, Avery Hayes (no relation) and others. And beyond that, he was attentive in his duties throughout practices as a regular healthy scratch.
None of that should sugarcoat the fact that Hayes is a diminishing entity as an NHLer. As such, he’ll be allowed to walk as a pending unrestricted free agent this upcoming offseason. And frankly, he might have trouble getting anything more than a professional tryout contract going into next season.
But if this is it for Hayes, he went out like a professional.