Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Breaking down the Penguins THIRTEEN PICKS in the NHL Draft!

Episode Date: June 30, 2025

The Penguins made 13 picks in the 2025 NHL Draft, including three in the first round, and we're breaking them down! Patrick and Hunter break down a crazy weekend for the Penguins that included three first-round picks, 13 total picks, and multiple trades! They talk about the decision to take Ben Kindel 11th overall, why they traded down in the first round, and look at who is closest to becoming an NHL contributor out of their three first-round picks. Then, they discuss the rest of the draft, where the Penguins made 10 picks in rounds two through seven, as well as who they think could be a late-round steal. Finally, as part of a draft-day trade, the Penguins brought in Connor Clifton on defense. Will he be part of the plan long-term, or is this another trade deadline candidate? Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Rugiet150,000 men have made the switch →https://Rugiet.com/LOCKEDONNHLUse code LOCKEDONNHL to get 15% off your order!GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNHL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply.Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONNHL at monarchmoney.com/lockedonnhl for 50% off your first year.Wonderful PistachiosGet snackin' and get crackin' with the snack that packs a protein punch. Visit WonderfulPistachios.com to learn more! FanDuelToday's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new FanDuel customers can get $150 in Bonus Bets if your first $5 bet wins!FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

13 picks, multiple trades, and a whole lot of beef. We're talking about a weekend, but not a weekend at the Steakhouse. We're talking about the Penguins picks in the NHL draft. You're Locked-on Penguins, your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome into the Monday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Patrick Damp. You can follow me across all social media platforms at Sendanem for Wet.

Joined as always by the one and only Hunter Hodes. You can follow him on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. You can give our shows account a follow at LO underscore Penguins. And now you can also follow us on Instagram at Locked On underscore Penguins. And of course, we appreciate you making us part of your daily routine because we're your team every day. Remember, we are free and available wherever you get your podcasts as well as YouTube. And don't forget if you're following us on YouTube to make sure you've hit the notification button. That way you can be among the first to know when we drop our daily Monday through Friday episodes before we dive in to what was a really active weekend for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Today's episode is brought to you by Fandul. Right now, new customers can get $150 in bonus bets on Fandul if their first $5 bet wins. Hunter, one thing I want to do before we dive into the draft is I have to extend another massive, massive thank you to all of you guys who hung out with us on Friday night during our live stream during the first round of the NHL draft on YouTube. There were hundreds of you. You were active in the comments. We played a great game of remember some dudes.

We reacted to the Penguins picks. it was a total blast and Hunter I think I speak for you as well when I say we could not be more grateful for you guys and the locked on penguins community. Yeah man, the live stream was fantastic. Three great hours I think we peaked at a little over 400 people at one point hanging out with us.

It has over 3 to 4K watches right now combined a couple days after. So thank you guys so much for tuning in. Thank you all to the new subs who have subbed to our YouTube channel. And especially thank you all to the new people who have listened on audio these last several weeks during the off season. It's going to get real busy again this way to a free agency starting on Tuesday. So again, thank you guys so much. That game. I'll remember that penguin was awesome.

And of course, Pat, the penguins decided to trade right back up after we went live. You couldn't have scripted it any better than that. It was so much fun. And let's leave it at that because we are going to do some stuff like that in the future. Nothing said in stone yet, but like I said during the show live on Friday, we don't want to lose the novelty of it. We want it to be a special thing. We're not going to go live for every single game, every single big moment. We want to make sure it's a special event because you guys were awesome for it, and we want to make sure we can recreate and capture that same energy.

So let's dive into it, Hunter. For the first time since 1984, that was a bit of a notable draft for the first. Pittsburgh Penguins, I would say, when they drafted La Magna Fique. But this was the first time since then that the penguins had three picks in the first round. They were originally slated to pick back to back at 11 and 12. And then as I have written, as I have said multiple times, Kyle Dubas did his most favoritest thing ever at the NHL draft, and that was the trade back. There was a whole bunch of convoluted trades with the flyers, the Los Angeles Kings. But ultimately, the Penguins,

away with the 11th, 22nd, and 24th overall picks in the first round. Their first pick at 11 forward Benjamin Kindle, their second pick forward Bill Zonan, and then their 24th overall pick, Will Horkroft, and we are all getting ancient because, yes, that is the son of Sean Horkoff. They also would go on to make 10 picks on day two. We're not going to go through every single pick and do every single break. down. Let's at least start this with the first round. With a few days past now, I feel pretty good about their first round. I think Kindle is somebody that

produced really well at the junior level. You can say the same thing for all three of their first round picks. You can kind of tell they went for guys who were able to produce at a high level at the junior or collegiate level. So I think overall, Kindle looks like, he is a player that could develop into a good middle six forward. Zonan is going to be a problem to play against should he develop big, nasty, talented. And Horkoff, it's a bit of a question mark. We'll see what happens with him. He strikes me, and I'll throw it over to you after this Hunter, as a project.

But he feels like the kind of player that you can use in trades to be like, hey, we've got this first round pick here if you want to take them. So overall, I like to do this body of work over the weekend. And I think with some time passed, I'm pretty happy with the first round. Yeah, with Will Horkov, I guess we'll start from the bottom and go up to Ben Kendall. He actually started playing a lot better once he got to Michigan this season, four goals, 10 points in 18 games. He's a big 654 once again size, very much the biggest theme for the penguins throughout

this draft, in my opinion. Warcoff really good around the net front. His release is getting a bit better. I think his skating is getting a little bit better as well. But he's in the right environment, right, Pat. You want him playing that college hockey against better players so he can keep developing. I think he's probably the furthest away of the other two first round picks when it comes to. Bill's on it, by the way.

He is an absolute beast to play against. He is fantastic. You turn on the tape, man. you see someone who loves going to the net. Again, good luck getting him out of the way once he gets there. There was a couple clips that I saw when he was repeatedly getting cross-checked by someone and he just wouldn't move at all because he's so big. He got the goal right after when the rebound came to him.

And you can see like the defender just almost throw up his hands. Like, what do you want me to do here when Bill's on and just goes to the net? He also has a bit of some silky skill, has a really underrated release, underrated playmaking ability. I think this is going to be someone that becomes a fan favorite pretty quick. Development canvast starts a bit later on this week. I'm going to have the chance to get to go up there and see all these prospects play and practice. I'm really excited about it.

The more tape that I watched, the more excited I got about bills on him. Just a really, really fun player to watch. And then Ben Kendall, one of my boys, I know some people are still going to be mad about passing on Victor Eckland. And while I do think Kindle is maybe a smidge of a reach, and I probably would have gone Eklund, I still think Ben Kindle is very good and is going to surprise a lot of people in this fan base.

He was one of the first prospects that I talked about on this show a few months ago when I was really starting my big board. One of the most underrated prospects in this draft has speed for days, great motor, really great release, doesn't need a lot of time and space to utilize it. He's also great at winning the one-on-one battles,

really smart. His hockey IQ very much there. He has experience playing with Penguins' Prospect, Tanner How, he had almost 100 points this year for the Calgary hitman. His playmaking took off. He's the full package for me. He's also really good in the zone.

The two-way play is there as well. I think he's going to stick at center going forward, in my opinion. But the further we get away from the first round, the more that I am liking it, in my opinion. Yeah. And one of the things that stood out to me with Kindle in going back and watching tape of him once again, diving into the numbers,

is he is on a very good development. track because he goes from his rookie year with the Calgary hitmen putting up 60 points and then the next year has a 39 point improvement goes from 60 points to 99. I understand it's junior. I understand there is a disparity of talent between the top guys and the bottom guys. But a 39 39 point improvement over a year is not insignificant. That is a player who began to find his game really improved. And like you said, he is the, and I believe I said this as well when we discussed him during our draft previews was this is a player who his junior numbers are going to jump off

off the page at you because again, 99 points is 99. points no matter how you cut it. But he is an incredibly intelligent player. Yes. Rarely out of position, rarely makes mistakes. Does this mean he's going to become the next big penguin center? I would put that as unlikely. But is he on track developmentally to look like he could be a useful, productive, good forward?

Absolutely. Yeah, I see him as like a 30 goal 40 assist guy once he's fully developed. Maybe he gets a bit more than that, but that's the way I see it right now. And if you're the penguins, you take that and run with it. I think right now he's the best prospect in the system, and it's not really close. Again, I encourage more people to turn on the tape for Ben Kindle because they really like what they see. But, you know, 13 picks this weekend. You look at recent drafts.

Pat, they have not taken 13 players in a draft since 1994 when they drafted 14. Just a completely different error right now. It shows the direction that they are going. And we're going to get into a couple more of the players that I've had the chance to watch tape on in the second segment. We're not going to get to everyone today just because I haven't had the time to watch tape on everyone. But there are at least a couple that I am intrigued about. So I'll leave it at that. And I think that's a good place to leave the first segment.

We'll dive into some more of the Penguins 13 total picks in the 2025 NHL draft. So stick with us. We're going to do that when we come back right after this. Before we do that, though, we've got to tell you about today's first sponsor, and that is Fandul. Summer sports, they're in full swing, and whether you're all about baseball under the lights, golf on the green or high-stakes soccer action. Fandul is the best way to make every game even more exciting. You're already following the action, so why not make it a little bit more thrilling?

With Fandle, you can get in on the game with your friends while your friends are getting sunburned at the beach. Fandle, it's easy to use. You've got fast payouts. And of course, it makes those regular season games feel like must watch events. If you're new to Fandul, you can bet just $5 and get $150 in bonus bets if that first bet wins. So open the Fandul app today or visit fandul.com to get started. We're back here on the Monday edition of Locked on Penguins.

It's our draft recap episode. and we'd probably need another three-hour live stream to go over the 13 picks that the Pittsburgh Penguins made in the 2025 draft. I want to start, though, with what might be one of my favorite stories from this draft, and that is Goaltender Gabriel Dague. Now, he is a little bit of a project. We know that the penguins are pretty well set when it comes to goaltending. prospects, but there is a fantastic penguins connection.

He hails from the same hometown as Mark Andre Fleury, and it's not just like a guy who you drive into the city and you see the sign that says, this guy's from here. No, they work with the same goaltending coach and they work out together in the summer. that Mark Andre Fleury endorsement is all I need and people are going to look at his stats pat and he'd be like oh man not that good 4.52 goals against average 8 83%

his team this year was 16 and 33 and 2 they were an absolute mess in front of him he was doing everything in his power to keep his team in games there is definitely talent there hopefully they're better next season but

there is a million percent some good talent there another player that I found interesting from this year's draft. How about Charlie Trethewey? And Pat, I think you saw the story here. He was a diehard Penguins fan growing up. The Penguins were releasing all these pictures, videos of him, and Penguins merchandise. You saw him in the Crosby jersey.

His family is from Mount Lebanon, if I recall correctly, per Penn's Inside Scoop. This is an awesome little homecoming story. And I was able to put on the tape a little bit. yesterday. And his shot, that's the first thing that stands out to me. It is beautiful. It explodes off his stick. He skates fairly well for his size. He can also be a bit physical when needed. He's still developing, you know, positionally, but he's not out of it too, too often. He was also with the Penguins Elite for a little bit. So he's kind of like a legacy pick here in a way where he's been with the Penn's Elite. He grew up a Penguins van. His whole family are diehard Penguins fans.

it's just a really, really cool story. It is. And two things on this. One, I'll get the joke out of the way first, and then I'll get into the actual comment I want to make. The joke that I made was, I understand why the penguins' social media and the penguin in Michelle Creckiolo were really touting a lot of the prospects that they took in the draft picks that they had,

saying, oh, my favorite team growing up was the Pittsburgh Penguins. These guys were born in 2007. Literally. The penguins were one of the best teams of the late 2000s and most of the 2010s. So we all know kids are the biggest front runners on the planet. So of course they love the penguins growing up. But I digress on that one. The other one is it is related to the joke, though, is this is what the Crosby era of the penguins has done to hockey in Pittsburgh.

It is a place where people go to play now. The Penn's Elite program is a legit developmental program. Players come from across the country and even in some cases from around the world to play for the Penn's Elite program. So this has been, yeah, a very successful era of Penguins hockey strictly at the NHL level with the championships, the new arena, the new practice facility, everything else. For the sport itself, it has grown exponentially in the Pittsburgh region, thanks to the Penguins. So that is really cool to see.

The other one, and I want to talk about this player so we can talk about how they got this player. And that is who they drafted in the second round, Peyton Kettles, defensemen, and this fit the trend for the Penguins draft this year. I set it in our cold open. they went big this draft. The two smallest players are their first pick and their last pick and they're still 5-10, but Kettles is a 6-6 defenseman out of the WHL.

They picked him 39th overall with a pick they got from Buffalo in a trade, which we'll discuss to end the show. But Hunter, looking at this kid's tape over the last 24 or so hours, I don't know how close he is to be in an NHL contributor, but the potential is very much there. 100%. And I haven't watched it as much as Trethewe, for example,

so I don't want to give my thoughts without diving into it a little bit more. So obviously, I'm going to go off your judgment a bit more. But he's certainly someone who I'm pretty fascinated about going into the future here. There is one player before we end the show that I did want to touch on a little bit that I find was interesting that they took a bit late in the draft. And that is Kale Doc. No, he is not related to Kirby Doc, who is already in the NHL.

But I really like the late round swing on him here. He was picked in the seventh round, 2001st overall by the Penguins. He played this year for the Sherwood Park Crusaders in the BCHL, 22 goals, 87 points in 54 games. He was also over a point per game in the playoffs too. Now, that league is not very good. he had the league MVP on his line, which obviously helps. But we're going to see what he does next season in a bit of a better league

when he also plays for the Calgary Hitman and Ben Kindle. So maybe they'll get to team up together and be on the same line. After that, if he crushes those minutes and puts up really good production, he is going to Penn State for the 26-27 season. That'll also be another big test for him, of course. So I am curious to see how he does against better competition, because I feel like as of right now, they may have gotten a steal in this player.

Yeah, I kind of had the same thought about Doc. And this is what you do with your late round picks. You take swings. A lot of these late round picks that they have. Like a lot of these picks, the 13 players they took, a lot of these,

you're throwing darts at the dart board, you're taking quantity, you're seeing how many of these are going to stick. Especially because Pat, you didn't have the opportunity to take one of the big guys in this draft. When I mean that, I mean one of the big four that I had on my board. You couldn't trade up.

So what do you do? You throw darts at the dart board. You see how many of these are going to stick. I'm pretty confident in Kindle and Zonan, but you know, we'll have to see about Horkup. We'll have to see about, you know, kettles. We have to see about Tretherway and all these other players, obviously Doc, I just named. Like that's, I think the strategy that you saw here with this draft. And with that in mind, Hunter, let's do this because as much as we try not to, we do a

occasionally have to dive into the cliches. Overall, looking at who they got, looking at how many picks they made in the strategy they had going into it, in your estimation, would you call this a good draft for the penguins? Yes, I give it a solid B. I think it could have been a bit better if, you know, you swung for maybe a little bit more skill upside a little later on in the draft and not some of these, you know, more bigger players. And I'm not saying these bigger players are bad or anything. I just feel like if you maybe would have swung on someone like an LJ Mooney, they had multiple chances to take him. Homesound kid Pat, he's played really well throughout his development so far. They didn't feel like

doing it. I think if you would have just swung for maybe someone like that would have been a little better. But I still give it a solid B. I don't think it's nearly as bad as some people in the fan base are making it out to be. I think or I hope that going forward, they're going to get some good players out of this that will make an impact later on. For me, I'm with you in that. I think it's a B B minus range. I said it on our live show. I didn't hate the pick of Kindle at 11.

And as I am saying and have said on the show today, the more I dive into the tape, the more I think about it, I can see the logic. I can see that he is a player that is worth taking. the shot on. But when you look at some of the players that went after him, say Victor Eklund, a guy that we were really big on, he falls all the way to 16th. And the Islanders end up getting him. You also had a couple other players fall down a little bit lower. And I would have liked to see

them do that. But at the end of the day, you had, you ended up with 13 picks in the draft. And this is something I have been saying Kyle Dubus is trying to do for a long time now is he is stockpiling as much as he can in the system. And the other thing, and this is where we can end this segment, I know this is going to be tough to hear. And I wrote about this on Saturday morning.

I know this will be tough to hear for some fans. But this rebuild is just getting under way. It's maybe a year and a half old, if that. The true line of demarcation for when this rebuild started was the Jake Gensel trade. That was when they changed direction and they realized they had to go another way and they couldn't go all out anymore. And a rebuild is going to have many faces. It's going to, it's not going to be a straight line path. There's going to be zigzags. There's going to be detours. And to put a fine point on it, I'll say the same thing I said on our show, our live show on Friday. We don't know the full picture yet. July 1st is tomorrow.

Free agency will open. We have the rest of the off season to go. There's going to be a lot more trades, there's going to be some signings. Reacting to their first draft that they have had with this many picks in almost 30 years, it's an incomplete picture. Now, if they kind of stand pat and don't do a whole lot this summer, then we can have that conversation. But right now, we're at the very beginning of this rebuilding process. 100%.

The cancel trade, what they did in free agency last year. what you saw the trade deadline this year, there's a plan in place. I don't think you have to squint too hard to see that there is one, and they're going to continue it this week. I don't think they're going to be very busy on Tuesday for free agency. I think you might see a couple players come in on one-year deals, maybe two at most. That could potentially be flipped at the deadline next year. They're going to also have other players on expiring contracts that they're going to

look to flip at next year's trade deadline. So I think there will also be trades. I know some teams are probably a bit stagnant right now just because the Kappa's going up and some teams feel like they don't have to do anything. But again, I still think the penguins, they're going to be pretty busy over this next month and, hey, potentially even into August as well. I'm right there with you. And speaking of being active, making trades and expiring deals, they made a deal at the draft,

and that is going to be part of it. We'll talk about that when we come back right after this. All right, we're back here on the Monday edition. of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. We've talked about the NHL draft, a lot of the Penguins picks of the 13 that they made. And that means we also have to talk about the trade that they made to start the day on Saturday. The Penguins send Connor Timons and Isaac Belvo to the Buffalo Sabres in exchange for Connor

Clifton and the 39th overall pick, which, as we said, they used. that day. But Connor Clifton, a big defenseman on an expiring deal. And I do like this a little bit because you look at Clifton's numbers from the past few seasons. Now, with this in mind, he was on the Buffalo Sabres for the last two years. I will say he was not very good last year, but they need him to play 50-ish, 55 OK games and then they'll probably flip him at the deadline. Yes. But the point I'm making on this is he, played the last two seasons with the Sabres, a total of five goals in those two years, and a total of 34 points. So for a second to third pairing defenseman, that's not too bad. If you can get

something similar out of him, like you said, Hunter, you get that kind of production out of him as a second or third pairing defenseman. When we get to the trade deadline, we know that teams love stacking up on defense and he is making all of 3.3 million on an expiring deal. I think you've got yourself a pretty nice little trade chip. Also that and teams love getting bigger and meaner and nastier at the trade deadline. Teams will value someone like this even though he was not very good last year for the Sabres. I think at the end of the day, at the end of the day, excuse me, the Penguins just swapped two third pairing defensemen. I was a little bit surprised that they gave up on

timmons because I felt like they were going to bring him back. I felt like he played very well down the stretch. But also at the same time, I see where the penguins are coming from because they've said they want to get a bit bigger on the back end. They want to get a bit meaner. They want to be a bit nastier to play against. Connor Clifton, he definitely brings those elements, big checker. Not that good in his own zone.

It doesn't bring a lot of offense, but they want someone who can deliver some thundering hits. So I see it from that perspective. and if he plays well, maybe you can get a mid-round pick. I don't think he's going to last the entire season. The Penguins, that's just the first of many more trades to come, I think, this offseason. I do too. And the other thing to kind of build off of that that was part of what I wrote on substack on Saturday is the other thing to keep in mind with what they're doing, where the rebuild is, you pull up their puckpedia page right now, and they have a total.

of UFAs going into this season. Oh yeah. They have got, obviously, we brought up Connor Clifton. They have Ryan Shea, Connor Dewar, if they decide to bring him back, will be a UFA. Yonah Copan, Boko and Mama, Blake Lazzat, Nola Chari, Danton Heinen, Kevin Hayes. Again, Malkin, but we'll see what happens with that.

But they have a ton of UFAs who, while they're not going to fetch you more than likely any big return because none of these guys are big ticket players, save for obviously Brian Rust and Ricard Raquel, who have two years remaining on their deals respectively. But when you group it with what Kyle Dubus is trying to do, where he is trying to stockpile as many assets as he can, as many draft picks, as many prospects, young NHL talent, they are set up very well. to make all of that happen. And if a few of these guys develop who are already here the right way, next summer,

they will be in prime position to take a big swing. I mean, they're going to have upwards of 50 million of cap space. I'm sure maybe some of that will be used on cap dumps, but anyone who thinks all that's going to be used on cap dumps, I think is missing the forest for the trees. I think they're going to go out and at least make one or two big moves next summer to really start speeding this thing along,

especially if they can get a little bit lucky in the draft lottery, by the way, maybe a Gavin McKenna or a few other guys after something like that. But yeah, man, we also have to see if they trade any of these pending UFAs this summer. Like, you know, you've seen some of the talk that Noachari could be out there. You've seen some little bit of chatter that Ryan Graves is out there. I don't know. I don't think I believe that that much just because of where his value is. But I very much see a world where some of those pending UFAs get dealt this summer and

then maybe some of the others get dealt by the deadline. No matter what, though, I think you are going to see a. pretty big sell-off come next March and they're going to get even more picks for a lot of these players. Right. And we may have to have another episode like this around this time next summer because they made 13 picks this year and they're right in line to have in around that depending on what they do on the trade market this year. So we will see. We will obviously keep an eye on it tomorrow July 1st. Free agency opens at noon. Hunter and I are going to have a new episode for you. We'll kind of let you guys know on social media what we decide to do.

If we're going to wait a little bit or if we'll go early, obviously, we will let you guys know. We're going to figure that out amongst ourselves and obviously let you know for that. Also, one more time. Thank you again to everybody who hung out with us on Friday night. It was a ton of fun. We hope to do something like that again soon. but that is going to do it for the Monday edition, the draft recap edition of Locked-on Penguins for Hunter Hodes. I'm Patrick Damp. Thank you as always for tuning in,

and we will be back with a brand new episode for you on Tuesday.