Mark Madden: Rickard Rakell helps the Penguins, but will it be enough?

Pittsburgh Penguins GM Ron Hextall was in a tough spot as Monday’s NHL trade deadline approached.

This is the Penguins’ last chance to make a playoff run with the current core, which makes it the team’s last chance for the foreseeable future. That’s beyond debate.

Hextall had to strengthen. If Hextall couldn’t add, Plan B should have been blowing it up. Trading Kris Letang, Evgeni Malkin and Bryan Rust. All will be free agents at season’s end. None are likely to stay. Standing pat made zero sense.

But standing pat seemed likely. Hextall took over as GM a little over 13 months ago. He has made remarkably minimal impact on the roster.

Hextall was hampered by having just $3 million in cap space, few prospects to trade, unwillingness to deal a first-round draft choice and, frankly, lack of gumption to make a player-for-player swap off his NHL roster. (That type of deal almost never gets made now.)

In the end, he made a decent get, acquiring rental winger Rickard Rakell from Anaheim.

Giving up a second-round pick is no big deal.

Calle Clang is highly regarded but not the Penguins’ only prospect in goal. Anyway, starting netminder Tristan Jarry is only 26.

Wingers Zach Aston-Reese and Dominik Simon combined for five goals in 107 games and were among the reasons the Penguins seem stale.

Rakell, 28, isn’t the scoring force he was in 2016-17 and ’17-18 when he scored 33 and 34 goals, respectively. The Penguins aren’t the team they were then, either.

This season, Rakell has 16 goals in 51 games. He’s solid. He shoots right but plays left wing. He’s adept at attacking off the rush, a preferred method with the Penguins’ top six. He’s not a ferocious forechecker as per the Penguins’ style. Rakell won’t play on the top power play but will add to the second unit. He excels at zone entries.

Rakell must skate with Malkin. Bryan Rust goes back on a line with Sidney Crosby and Jake Guentzel. Otherwise, there was no point in getting Rakell.

Rakell should stay at his accustomed left wing despite shooting right. Some say he could move to the right side. But it’s dumb to make him switch teams and positions at the same time. The Penguins should have learned that when they mangled getting Jarome Iginla in 2013.

Hextall did his best but probably didn’t do enough.

He should have traded his first-round pick for immediate help.

Hextall never was going to deal his pending free agents. He’d have lost what was left of the locker room, especially Crosby, and the fans. (It still might have been the right move and will be proven such if the Penguins get eliminated in the first round for a fourth straight year.)

This really is the Penguins’ last chance. Retaining any of their free agents is highly unlikely. Rebuilding starts next season.

The Penguins have a good team but not a ton different from the rosters that haven’t won a playoff series since 2018. They’re not as good as Carolina, Florida or Tampa Bay. They easily could lose in the first round to the New York Rangers and ballyhooed goalie Igor Shesterkin.

Hopefully, they won’t. Hopefully, they fulfill the optimism that permeates. They should beat the Rangers — or Washington, if that’s the first-round matchup. (Let’s hope it’s not Carolina.)

Who plays on a line with Malkin and Rakell?

Kasperi Kapanen should get first crack. Kapanen has disappointed monumentally. But the Penguins have few forwards with top-six talent, and Kapanen is one. Maybe Rakell gives Kapanen a boost by making Kapanen his line’s tertiary threat.

Danton Heinen is Plan B. Heinen and Rakell were teammates at Anaheim last season and for part of the previous campaign. But Heinen just isn’t a top six. Neither is Evan Rodrigues.

A third line of Jason Zucker, Jeff Carter and Rodrigues seems potent for that spot on the depth chart once Zucker returns from injury. Brian Boyle takes Aston-Reese’s spot on the fourth line, excelling at faceoffs and the penalty kill (but not skating fast).

Rakell helps. But likely not enough.