Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - BONUS EDITION: Thoughts & analysis on the Penguins trading for Kevin Hayes!

Episode Date: June 29, 2024

The Pittsburgh Penguins acquired Kevin Hayes and a second-round pick from the St. Louis Blues for virtually...nothing! Well, almost nothing. On this bonus show, Hunter and Patrick discuss if this is a good move by Kyle Dubas and analyze the impact that Hayes will have on this roster. They also look at what could come next and what this move tells us about the long-term plans that Kyle Dubas has for this team. Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Pittsburgh Penguins made a surprising acquisition on Saturday by trading for Kevin Hayes, and Pat and I are going to discuss that in a special mini bonus episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast right after this. You're Locked-on Penguins, your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Hello and welcome back to a special edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Hunterser Hodes. you can follow me on Twitter at Hunters Hodes, joined by my co-Cast, Patrick Damp. You can follow him on Twitter at Sundan Furwet,

and you can follow the show's Twitter at L.O. underscore Penguins. So I know this might be weird to everyone out there. We never really record on Saturdays, but we wanted to get a fresh 10 to 15 minute episode out for you all after the Penguins acquired Kevin Hayes during the second day of the 2024 NHL draft. And when I first saw this move, I was definitely taken aback. I was kind of stunned just because I did not think Kevin Hayes was even out there in trade talks.

And I did not think that Penguins were even going to acquire him, even if he was traded overall. But that's exactly what they did today. They acquired him along with a 2025 second round pick from the St. Louis Blues in exchange for future considerations. Haven't seen that in a while. So basically, the Penguins got him for free. And I know there were some people not happy about this move. I think at first I was definitely a bit mad about it just because I wasn't sure what was going back. But the fact that the Penguins really didn't have to give up anything for him,

the fact that they also got a second round pick for taking the final two years of his contract. I see that as at least a little bit of a win for Kyle Dubus. Kevin Hayes is also someone that can play third-line minutes for the Penguins. Now, do I think he's a massive upgrade at third-line center? No, I think he's a little bit better than Lars Eller. I think offensively he's a bit better, but defensively, I think that's where Eller has him by a little bit. But this is still a player that I think can help the Penguins for next season and the season after that. I also think he's more of a playmaker overall.

So if you stick someone like Daltz-Rae Pustin next to him, I think those two could really thrive together. And just getting that extra second round pick for next year's draft, which I think is going to be deeper than this year's draft. I think that's at least a decent bit of business from Kyle Dubas. think this is a very fine move overall. Pat, how do you see it? Everybody, everybody with me now, all together, in through the nose, out through the mouth. It's June 29th. This is not all that they're going to do this summer. This is not going to be the one move that they do all summer. Is this a great move? It's fine. He's a third line center. can eat up some minutes. He's going to be improvement and improvement on the bottom six,

which tells you about how bad the bottom six has been. But you're paying a guy three and a half million dollars for the next two years. You still have other moves you're going to make. I imagine we're going to see a Riley Smith trade at some point this summer. We're probably, I would say, likely to see a jari trade if that comes about. They're going to have ways to free up cap space here. We know that the salary caps going up. We know that there are teams with a lot of a lot more room to play with than what they had at this time last summer. So there's a good chance the penguins are going to do more.

For Kevin Hayes itself, I'm right with you. It's a me kind of move. His numbers aren't exactly great. He had a rough year last year, only 29 points in 79 games. But two years ago on a not so very good Philadelphia. Flyers team before Torts decided he hated him. In 81 games, he scored 18 goals, 36 assist, 54 points. And on a team, I understand the Flyers weren't good.

He was really about one of the only players worth the game they had. But there's still some juice left in the tank here. He's not completely washed up. Yes, he doesn't have a ton of foot speed, but you're not getting Kevin Hayes for his foot speed. You're getting him for the ability to kill penalties. You're getting him to eat up. minutes when your top six is not on the ice. He's going to chip in every now and then.

And if nothing else, it gets right into the type of player the penguins have been missing. This guy's not afraid to hit. He's not afraid to go to the front of the net. He's got some sandpaper in his game. And he does the little things that help a team win. Am I over the moon with this acquisition? No, but I can see it helping in the next year or two. I think it also shows you what Kyle Dubus's mentality is now. Every move he makes from here till the end of Crosby, Malkin, and Lattang's careers are going to have draft picks attached to it. He is going to stockpile draft pick, after draft pick, after draft pick, and he's going to try to get younger prospects who may not be blue chip, top of the level,

top of the line prospects, but he is going for quantity on this, not quality. He wants to have a very heavily stocked prospect system so that in the final years of Sidney Crosby, he's there to play mentor to what could be a transitional team and a transitional generation in Penguins hockey. Yeah, man, I really think people are undervaluing the draft pick part of this trade. Kyle Dubas has said on multiple occasions that he's willing to take on some salary as long as the team attaches a prospect or a draft pick to that player. Well, the Blues just did that with a second round pick, which that has the potential to be a high pick in next year's draft chip because let's face it, I don't think the blues are going to be that good next year. I think at best they're a very mid-team heading in the next season, but I can see them being a bottom seven, bottom eight team in the league next year just because I think, again, at this point, I don't see them being that good overall when you look up and down that roster. So I think that's being a little bit undervalued when you look at this trade overall. And you also discuss something that I wanted to get into a little bit here too.

And that is Kevin Hayes' play on the penalty kill. These last couple of years, he hasn't played on the PK too much in 77 games this year for the Blues. He only played 15 minutes. Last year with the Flyers played only 12 and a half minutes. But he has quite a bit of experience playing on the penalty kill with the New York Rangers a few seasons ago. For example, 2016-17, he played 108 minutes on the penalty kill.

The next season, 168 minutes. The season after that in 2019, 100. two minutes. And in 2019, 20 with the Flyers, that was his first season with the Flyers, he played 140 minutes on the penalty kill. I think Mike Sullivan is definitely going to deploy him in the penalty kill quite a bit during this season. And that just gives them another forward that can play in that situation outside of Brian Russ, who we all know he's great on the penalty kill, outside of Lars Eller, if he remains on this team, just because he's been involved in some trade rumors outside also of Nollachari, if he remains on this team, he's also

you know, we're asking questions about whether he's going to be on the team next year just because I think at least one of Eller or Achari could be expendable off of this trade. But it just gives them an extra option for the penalty kill. And he's been a good penalty killer before in this league. He has. And the penguins have had a pretty solid penalty kill, excuse me, over the past couple of seasons. And we know, obviously, from this season, how important special teams are because of how bad power play was, which we actually found out over the weekend this, or considering it's only Saturday,

this weekend that it looks like Quinn is going to be in charge of the power play this year. So I'm overall, I'm very just, me, whatever on this acquisition, and I understand the plan behind it. And to your other point about the draft picks, I mean, I think you're right. A lot of people are very high on St. Louis, for what reason, I don't know. They finished, I believe, six points out of a playoff spot.

And that was for the second wild card in the West. And they finished, I think, 15 points out of third place in the Central. So it's not like this team is knocking at the door. And then you look at what they have and what's coming up. There isn't a whole lot there. This isn't exactly a team that is freeing up cap space to make a big move or fit somebody in or take the next step. This is a team that is probably on the precipice of a rebuild.

So you're probably going to get a solid pick in a deep draft next summer in the second round. So overall, I like this move from Dubus, but I'm not going to pretend like it was this great savvy move. It's a good depth player that's going to help them out in some areas that they have needed help for the last two seasons. Right. And do I think Kevin Hayes is quote unquote cooked? No, but do I also think he's as good as it used to be?

No, he's just kind of fine at this point. I don't think this is going to turn into a Jeff Carter type situation where his game completely goes off the rails this next season or two. He's only 32, which I know. It is kind of funny that Dubus continues to get some guys that are 30 plus, even though he keeps talking about the youth movement, but I don't think you're going to see too many more moves like that during the offseason. I do think this move should show to everyone that the penguins are very much

in a quote unquote, retool on the fly, I guess that may be mini we build on the fly. They're not in a full-line win-now mode, contender mode. He's made it very clear

with this move and some of the comments that he's made this weekend that he's not interested in some of the big moves in free agency. He's not interested in parting with a lot of futures overall.

He's very focused right now on setting up this organization for success after the big three and along with Eric Carlson, retire and that continues to be made the case here with this move. It does. And if you need a little bit of a reason to like this move just a little bit more, the Philadelphia Flyers are paying 50% of his salary.

So if he ends up succeeding here, thanks a lot, Philadelphia, because half of that paycheck is coming out of your bank account. Right. And I do think if they decide to keep Eller for next season for the final year of his deal, I mean, your bottom six centers, Kevin Hayes and Lars Eller, with how good Eller was for the Penguins this past season and with a potential bounce back for Hayes, you can do a lot worse than those two as your centers in the bottom six if that's what they want to run with for next season.

And again, I do think adding a playmaker like Hayes for the third line makes a lot of sense because you can put someone like a Valterrey Pustin next to him who's a pure finisher. I think that can unlock him in more than one way. And if you want to add another finisher to the third line, maybe via free agency on a one or two year deal, that would also make some sense as well. I also like the move for those reasons. Yeah.

And you look at a lot of the things Dubus has said during the draft. They're not going to hand out any four, five, six plus year deals here over the next couple of weeks. It's going to be one to three years max. You're going to look at some depth players, I think, that are going to come in to fill in, whether it's middle six, bottom six, or defense. So I think we're seeing his overall view and plan really start to take shape and come to fruition here. It's not, it's like you said, they're not tearing everything down in starting from scratch.

This isn't going to be a scorched earth campaign from Kyle D. But he's also not going to do what he did last summer. You're not going to see the big deal for some big name that they could go get. There's not going to be an Eric Carlson type trade this summer. It's going to be trades around the margin. He's going to free up some cap space to make some moves on the margin. And you're going to see a lot of draft capital and a lot of prospects come into the system. And it's going to be names that I've been saying this for a while.

It's going to be names that you're going to be underwhelmed by. You're going to see these names and think, I don't know a whole lot about this person, this player, his history, but he is trying to, as my colleague at KDKA, Josh Taylor put it, go with the Neil Huntington philosophy, where instead of just banking on one or two prospects to make it, you're banking on three or four to make it. And your ability to get something productive out of three or four prospects rather than one or two is, a lot higher. Right. And speaking of prospects, I do really like the job that Kyle Dubus did during the 2024. And it's all draft this weekend, getting a player like Harrison Brunuchu, I think, is their best defensive prospect in the system right now. And a total rat in Tanner Howe. I think he's

very much a Sam Bennett type player. You all are going to love him once he makes his Penguins debut. I had him in my honorable mentions category on my big board that I dropped over the weekend. And I'm super excited that they were able to get him in the second round as well as Max Swanson in the seventh round. That could be a flat out steel if he works out. The only reason why he dropped to the seventh round is because he's five foot seven. But we'll have more details and analysis about the 2024 Penguins draft coming up for the Monday edition of the show as well as everything they do during free agency. But for Patrick Damp, I am Hunter Hodes. Thank you all so much for tuning into this special edition of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. And we'll talk with you all

Monday for Free Agent Frenzy.