With all this talk about trades, it got me thinking. What was the last trade that Ron Hextall made?

In his final trade deadline with Pittsburgh during his reign of terror, Hextall made several moves that were puzzling at best at the time, and are straight up awful in hindsight.

There was the Mikael Granlund fleece. The Teddy Blueger banishment. The confusing Nick Bonino reunion. And the Dmitry Kulikov addition, which helped unload the Brock McGinn deal.

All of those trades were terrible.

Granlund didn’t fit in with the team from the moment he arrived here. He recorded just 1 goal and 4 assists in 21 games, while the Nashville Predators said “thank you very much” to the second round pick they received to offload $5 million from their cap.

Teddy Blueger, who was the first to go to free up cap, went on to play well in Vegas and parlay that into a great deal in Vancouver, where he is on pace for a career year.

Dmitry Kulikov and Nick Bonino both suffered season-ending injuries almost immediately after the trades, making both acquisitions rather useless, though that was not the fault of anyone individual.

But none of these were his last trade as general manager of the Penguins.

A little known fact about the trade deadline: it isn’t actually the official deadline for trades.

The trade deadline is only a deadline for players to be eligible to play in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Teams can still make trades after the deadline, but those players would not be permitted to appear in the playoffs that season.

Since most trades, especially around the deadline, involve a buyer and a seller – a team that is planning on going to the playoffs and one team that is not, it’s rare that any trade happens after the deadline.

But, if there are two teams that both are well out of the playoff race, either by accident or design, they can still make a trade.

Or, if the players involved in the trade have no chance of appearing in the NHL that year, a trade also makes sense.

That was the case for the Penguins and Anaheim Ducks on March 31st, 2023, when Hextall and Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek made a trade.

The Penguins sent Judd Caufield to Anaheim in exchange for Thimo Nickl.

Caufield was a fifth round pick of the Penguins back in 2019. He was drafted while Jim Rutherford was still in charge of the Penguins. Drafted from the US National Development Team, Caufield had opted to go the NCAA route, playing from the University of North Dakota.

At right wing, Caufield was in his third season at university at the time of the trade.

Last season, Caufield got his first taste of pro hockey. He was signed to an entry level contract in April, getting into five games with the San Diego Gulls in the American Hockey League.

Meanwhile, the Penguins had brought in a right handed defenseman in Thimo Nickl.

Nickl was a fourth round pick by the Ducks in 2020, and prior to this season had been playing in Europe.

A native of Austria, Nickl had spent his early years playing in his home country. He made the jump to North America ahead of his draft, playing for the Drummondville Voltigeurs in the QMJHL.

Since then, he has played in various leagues in Europe, before coming back to North America this season. Now in the Penguins organization, he has played 38 games for the team’s East Coast Hockey League, the Wheeling Nailers. He has registered 13 points.

Though he is now in the organization, he is not currently under any contract with the team. Instead, the 22 year old is on the Reserve List, which is comprised of any player whose signing rights a team holds.

In typical Hextall trade fashion, Caufield is much farther along in his development with the Ducks as opposed to Nickl with the Penguins.

Caufield has played in 37 AHL games this season, netting 15 points in the process. Though his production in the AHL has not been stellar so far, he is still in a higher league for development than Nickl currently is.

But in defense of Nickl, they do play different positions. Defensemen typically take a longer time to develop into NHL caliber players than forwards do, and the two players are currently the same age (22).

Hextall would be fired after the 2022-23 season, which saw the Penguins miss the playoffs for the first time in 16 years. His right hand man, President of Hockey Operations Brian Burke, was also fired.

New ownership in the Fenway Sports Group sought to bring in new leadership for their newest acquisition, which came in the form of Kyle Dubas.

(Featured image of Judd Caufield by Kevin Light/Getty Images)