Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - BREAKING: Penguins trade Marcus Pettersson and Drew O'Connor to Vancouver!

Episode Date: February 1, 2025

The Pittsburgh Penguins made a late-night trade on Friday and Hunter and Pat are here to give their early breakdown of the deal and how Kyle Dubas did. Did he win it? How crucial is getting the first-rounder? Who could be next? All of that, plus much more is on this special edition of Locked On Penguins.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNHL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.FanDuelSuper Bowl 59 is here, And there’s no better way to make every play more exciting than with FanDuel Sportsbook. New customers can bet just FIVE DOLLARS, and if you win, you’ll score TWO HUNDRED BUCKS in Bonus Bets. Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started.  Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of Super Bowl Fifty-Nine. 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.

The Pittsburgh Penguins made a late-night trade for all the sickos out there, myself included, and Pat and I are going to give our instant reaction to that deal 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 to this very special bonus edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I am one of your host, Hunter Hodes, joined by my host Patrick Damping. You follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. You can follow Pat on all social media platforms at Cinder and Ruett.

And you can follow these shows, Twitter, at L.O. Understore Penguins, of course, thank you all so much for making this your first listen slash watch of the day on a Saturday. Remember, we are free and available on all platforms. Just FYI, this is probably only going to be about a 10 to 15 minute video of our instant reactions to the Penguins dealing Marcus Pedersen and Drew Connor to the Vancouver Canucks. We'll have a bit more in-depth of a breakdown for you all on Monday. hopefully with Jesse Marshall joining the show for another edition of Marshall Monday. But it's funny, Pat, I actually got a tip off from a couple of people earlier in the day on Friday saying, watch out for this.

Like Marcus Pedersen could be getting dealt that day. So I was like, okay, didn't really know what to think. I didn't know what team they were talking to, but I just heard from a couple of people that were closer to the team. Hey, this could happen. So filed that away. Didn't want to tweet it out because I don't want to look like a complete idiot, but it ended up happening very late at night when a lot of people were asleep. the Pittsburgh Penguins trade,

defenseman Marcus Pedersen and forward Drew O'Connor to the Vancouver Canucks for a conditional first round pick for Denton Hinen, who has been with the Penguins before, defenseman Vinnie De Arnais, and then forward prospect Melvin Fernstrom. And off first glance, I really like what Kyle Davis here.

You get the conditional first back. And for those that don't know what that is, basically, if the Rangers get a top 13 pick in the 2025 annual draft, because this pick was originally, They sent it to Vancouver in the JT Miller trade. But if they get a top 13 pick, the pick goes to 2026, which is the deeper draft. So that's a win in itself. But Pat, if it's, say, 14th or 15th and the Rangers barely miss out on the playoffs,

Penguins might get a top 15 pick there. And if they get some draft lottery luck and they stink the rest of the way, they eventually have two top 15 picks in this year's draft. So really tidy business there from Kyle Dubas. it's better than, you know, trading a late first from someone like, you know, Florida, Edmonton, et cetera. So really tidy work there. You get Dayton Hinen back for Drew O'Connor, which is kind of a wash for me.

He is pretty versatile. He can play up and down your lineup and kill penalties. That's fine. Vinny Day or nay, he was fine his first couple of years. This year, though, it's been pretty rough. His underlying numbers aren't that good. I could maybe see him as a flip candidate next year if he's able to fine tune his game. But this year, he's kind of a number six, number.

seven defense with nothing more melvin fernstrom he's kind of like a magic beans type of prospect you know honestly i turned on some of the tape last night after they made this deal he's a third round pick in a 2024 n hl draft really nice one-timer that's really the thing that stands out to me about his game i'm going to do more of a deep dive into him hopefully a little bit this weekend find out more stuff about his game but from the small bit of film that i watched of him last night really nice shot but again third round pick kind of magic beans this year in his junior league 11 goals 8 18 points in 12 games last year in his junior league in Sweden, 31 goals, 63 points in 45 games. He's also playing the SHL this year, three goals, eight points in 35 games.

But going back to the overall trade, I kind of look at it as two trades in one. You get Marcus Pedersen for a first and a prospect, and then you're trading Drew O'Connor for Vinnie Day Arnae and Dayton Hyenn. And when you combine that all together, Pat, I think you have a really solid deal. I think this is some really tidy work from Kyle Dubus. And in case people didn't know, this is very much a rebuild on the fly. It is. And I got to say, man, I have been a huge fan of Kyle Dubus's work since about the Jake

Gensel trade in everything moving forward. A couple hiccups here and there, whether it be some signings or some roster moves up and down, whether it's sending some players to Wilkes or keeping some guys around longer than they need to be around. but at the end of the day, this is just some absolutely filthy, sick of work from Kyle Dubus. Getting a first round pick for a defenseman who is an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year, that's just, I'll say it again, really good work because we tempered our expectations for a lot of the players that we're going to be on the block and still are for the Pittsburgh Penguins,

because let's be completely honest here, their value is. really that high. And being able to turn in underperforming, underwhelming Drew O'Connor and frankly an overwhelming Marcus Pedersen as well into this kind of return is very good work. Marcus Pedersen kind of admitted to it to our friends at the athletic this season that part of his struggles this year was the focus on the trade deadline because it really was no secret that he was probably not going to be returning to the Penguins next season. He was their best asset to trade coming out of this year. And there wasn't

a lot of discussion between Pedersen's camp, Kyle Dubus and the Penguins. So all signs pointed to him being sold. And that really did contribute to him having a quote unquote down year. He hasn't been bad this year, but he really hasn't been the Marcus Pedersen we've gotten to know. Drew O'Connor, we have well documented the struggles from him this year. It has not been, a good follow-up to having a career season last year. And I'm very intrigued by this 18-year-old Benstrom. He looks like he has a lot of potential. He's very much a lottery ticket,

but we have seen that the penguins are prioritizing quantity really over quality. And it doesn't mean that they're just getting any piece of crap prospect that comes through the pipeline. But as I've discussed on the show before, they're just hoping to get as many as they can and if four, five, or six of them pan out and become NHL regulars, you've done a good job. Right.

Again, Fernstrom here, Magic Beans, third round pick, but there's at least some intrigue with his one-timer that I was watching last night. Again, I'm going to dive into more about his game over the weekend here, but I can understand why they're taking a fire on him, especially considering his age fat. He's only 18 years old, by the way. So totally fine with that. And I will say this for some of the Vancouver fans that might come in here to our comments and DM us and all that stuff.

You are getting a warrior and Marcus Pedersen. Hasn't had his best year, but he is still very good in his own zone. Can clean up that for Vancouver's defense. And some of the offense that he gives you, it'll take you out of your seat, truly. Like there have been times throughout his penguin's tenure where he would give you offense,

it would come out of nowhere, would show off a little bit of his dangles, and it's like, man, where is this from? But going off that, I will miss Marcus Pedersen. I knew this was coming from the opening drop of the puck this season, They were never going to extend him. But I am going to miss him, especially with the way he was able to stabilize his pairing these last several years.

It's going to be a tough void of hill for the Penguins now. But I will miss him. I hope he does very well on his next contract as well. I think he's going to, considering that he went to Vancouver. And we were talking about this before the show, Jim Rutherford. He loves his guys. It was like that here in Pittsburgh. It's very much like that in Vancouver as well.

You should see what he said to Vancouver media after requiring Pedersen. very hilarious statement. I retweeted on my Twitter account. And then for Drew O'Connor, best of luck to him as well. Had a really strong season last year, double-digit goals. This year hasn't gone as planned. I actually thought he was going to get closer to 20 goals this year. But for Vancouver fans watching, you are getting someone that if he puts it all together,

I do think he can be in that 16 to 20 goal scoring range like he was last year where he was really good. So just wanted to shout out both of them. And I hope they do well in the future. Me too. They both were very loyal, very hardworking soldiers. And what I'm going to say about Marcus Patterson is going to sound like an insult. And I promise it is not. This is the best way I can describe Marcus Pedersen.

He is McDonald's. You know what it's going to be every single time you go. It's always reliable. It's always consistent. It may not be the best thing you eat, but you know exactly what you're going to get. And he is the kind of defenseman that I talk about, all the time for a middle pairing two-way defenseman.

He rarely is going to blow you away on a nightly basis, but when you get to say game 75, game 80, game 82, you're getting ready for the playoffs, you look back at that whole season in his body of work and your instant thought is that guy was really solid this year. So he's not going to be flashy. He's not going to bring you a ton of offense. He's not going to stand out a lot. but the less you notice him, the better because he is a very solid two-way defenseman who stabilizes your second pairing and is going to make the right play with the puck.

He's going to be in position defensively, and he's rarely going to give up any big issues. And same for DOC. Once he puts it all together, he is a very versatile forward. He can play up and down your lineup. If he can recapture even a little bit of that scoring touch that he had last season, Vancouver is going to have a very good depth piece for what they're hoping is a long playoff run this spring. Right. You know, ditto with Denthenan, at least if he can recapture some of the magic that he had in Pittsburgh a few years ago, Pat, where he had 18 goals.

I don't think that's in the cars, but hey, anything's possible. He is DOC's replacement can play in his exact spot in the lineup. Can kill penalties can also play in your top six if injuries arise. And we expect at least Anthony Beauvillia to probably also get dealt at some point before the deadline. So if he's playing potentially up there for a little bit, wouldn't be surprised. But again, this is the first of, I think, several trades that you're going to see from Kyle Dubas. I think, again, Bavillier is probably one of the next two players that gets moved along with McGrislic.

And we have to see if anyone else gets moved as well, maybe someone like Nootrari, do you sell high on Michael Bunting? Do you sell high on potentially Alex Nielkevich? A lot of moving parts right now. But overall, I think this was a really solid piece of business from Caldubus. I'm happy with this return. I know you are as well. Do you have anything else to add before we wrap up here and send everyone into the weekend?

Just a really good trade by Kyle Dubus. He got the hardest assignment out of the way early. So I'm very curious to see what he does throughout the rest of this little stretch here before the deadline. But first shot fired, very, very good one. Right. And I know some people were kind of complaining a little bit, but they added this salary with Day Arnais. Danton Hinen, I don't really care, to be honest. The cap is going up.

The team is not very good. They are rebuilding on the fly. It really doesn't do much for me that they added a little bit of salary cap. And heck, part of the reason probably they're taking a little bit back, they got the first round pick people. That's pretty important. And no matter what, they're going to have that pick this year or it's going to be next year. That's the biggest part of the trade for me, Pat, is that you get the conditional first

back, at least for me. But I think that's going to do it for this very special bonus edition of the Locktown Penguins podcast. We'll be back to break more about this trade down on Monday with hopefully Jesse Marshall, get his thoughts on it. But until then, thank you all so much for tuning in. Pat and I really appreciate it. We'll be back on Monday.