Inside The Decline Of Kevin Hayes

There is perhaps no more interesting decline in the NHL than that of forward Kevin Hayes. Seven years ago, the then-27-year-old Hayes signed a seven-year, $49.9MM contract with the Philadelphia Flyers that was clearly an overpay at the time, but it aged like milk left in the hot summer sun of California. Philadelphia was desperate for center help and overpaid Hayes by a substantial amount to convince him to come to the City of Brotherly Love. Hayes did not feel the love and was shipped out to St. Louis after five seasons of disappointment with the Flyers, who retained half of his $7.14MM cap hit for the remaining two seasons. The Flyers knew what they were getting at the time, as Hayes had eclipsed 50 points just once in his career when he signed, but he was still a solid top-six NHL player when Philly inked him, and it would be less than the length of his contract before he declined into what was effectively a bubble NHL/AHL player.

When Hayes signed his deal, the expectation was that he was entering the prime of his career and would be an important piece for the Flyers. It was hard to envision his decline happening as quickly as it did, especially for the Flyers, who likely felt they were getting a player who still had room to grow. After all, Hayes was 6’5”, could protect the puck, and used his long reach to his advantage. He also had skill, as a solid playmaker who could carry the puck in transition and win board battles. He was not Connor McDavid, especially with his skating, but he moved well enough on the ice to control the puck and use his size to create space for himself.

And therein lies the issue. Hayes’s skating began to decline early for an NHL player. Mobility was clearly not his strong suit, but as he started losing steps and bursts, his ability to turn possession into offense began to fall off, and he was less successful carrying the puck up ice, particularly in transition, where he slowed to the point that he was essentially a sitting duck with the puck and easy to catch. This inability to get around the ice also weakened Hayes’s ability to create separation, rendering his reach and playmaking less valuable because opposing players could simply close the gap and check Hayes with ease. Basically, Hayes’s skating began to erode many of the physical advantages his size had given him, making him a below-replacement-level player.

This decline in Hayes’s offensive value also highlighted the shortcomings in his defensive game, which was never great to begin with. Coaches were far less forgiving of his defensive issues when he couldn’t make up for them on the offensive side, and as unforgiving as the coaches were for defensive lapses, the fans in Philadelphia were even less forgiving.

Had Hayes been signed to a seven-year deal worth $5.5MM or even $6MM annually, it wouldn’t have been ideal, but the expectations wouldn’t have been as high. As one can imagine, a $7MM player is judged much more harshly than a player making $5MM-$6MM when things get tough. A 30-40-point scorer making $5MM wasn’t ideal five years ago, but one making $7MM+ was disastrous. That was the standard set when Hayes signed his deal back in 2019. Make no mistake, no one should feel sorry for him, but those expectations likely made a bad situation worse and, at the very least, accelerated his downfall.

When Hayes’s scoring dried up and he became a lightning rod for criticism inside and outside the Flyers’ dressing room, it became clear that the team would need to move him.

The Flyers ultimately had to retain half of Hayes’s salary in the summer of 2023, shipping him to the St. Louis Blues for a 2024 sixth-round pick. It was an unceremonious end to a tumultuous tenure in Philadelphia, especially after Hayes had his best offensive season with the Flyers in 2022-23, posting 18 goals and 36 assists in 81 games. At the time of the trade, some pundits believed St. Louis might have a steal on their hands with Hayes, but those hopes were quickly dashed as the Dorchester, Massachusetts, native proved a poor fit with the Blues, and his offensive production nearly halved to 13 goals and 16 assists in 79 games.

In the summer of 2024, the Blues opened free agency on July 1st by trading Hayes to the Pittsburgh Penguins, along with a 2025 second-round pick, to relieve themselves of the final two years of his deal and his remaining $3.571MM cap hit. The Penguins were under no illusions about Hayes when they acquired him; they simply wanted the draft pick, as GM Kyle Dubas had been collecting extra picks in exchange for bad contracts and saw a path to a pick with Hayes.

In Pittsburgh, Hayes was largely relegated to bottom-six duties in his first season and performed as expected, tallying 23 points in 64 games. This past season, though, Hayes ran into a problem that has become more prevalent among aging players who lose their footspeed, namely younger players outplaying them and taking their roles. For the Penguins, a number of younger players stepped into the lineup and ate up Hayes’s playing time in the final year of his contract. Hayes appeared in just 28 games, several of which didn’t come until the last week of the season, when the Penguins had already secured their playoff seeding and elected to rest the likes of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. In what could be a fitting ending to his NHL career, Hayes posted two assists in the final game of the season against the very team that traded him to Pittsburgh, the St. Louis Blues.

Hayes was never going to live up to the massive contract he received in 2019. Still, his decline has been rapid, though he is not without comparables. Hayes’ play didn’t fall completely off a cliff, but that is only because he was never that far above an average NHLer to begin with. That said, his skills eroded quickly, and that is perhaps the most interesting part of his downfall.