Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Brock McGinn come on down...

Episode Date: July 28, 2021

Happy Free Agent Frenzy day! The Penguins did end up making a couple of moves and Hunter is joined by Mad Chad from his show with Eddie to break it all down. They first start with the Brock McGinn contract as that one came out of nowhere. Is he seen as Brandon Tanev's replacement? Is the term a bit too long? Does he have more offensive potential? They then touch on Simon and Evan Rodrigues coming back and wonder if Rodrigues over Gaudreau was the right call. After that, they go into what work is still left to be done this offseason. Which goalie could they trade for? Do they still need another top 9 winger? Is Mark Friedman Ceci's replacement?Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Your Locked-on Penguins. Your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network. Your team every day. Hello, welcome to this Wednesday afternoon edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes,

follow the show's Twitter at L-O-1Square. Penguins. Today is one of my favorite days of the NHL. Offseason, you know, just free age and frenzy with seeing all the money. thrown around refreshing Twitter from basically 9 a.m. in the morning until almost 5 p.m. in the afternoon. This is basically a full-time job for one day, at least, for people that don't have one. But I'm here to join me for Free Agent Frenzy to break down some of the moves the Penguins made today is Mad Chad from Penguins Twitter, but also now of D.K. Pittsburgh Sports, because, and there's an awesome ambulance, of course, in the background there. But now he, he,

is with D.K. Pittsburgh Sports with Eddie as their 4-1-2 sports talk show has just boomed like crazy. I'm so happy for you guys, first of all. Appreciate that. It's awesome what you guys have been able to do with your show, but I figured we could do a little crossover here. How are you doing, man? I'm doing well, yeah. I live right by the fire station, so

there's a fire call right now. Yeah, man, today I love NHL Free Agency. I love it because of GMs just going out of their way to do, the dumbest things possible. And that's one of the things, and we'll get into this. But I'm seeing a lot of, like, the Penguins didn't sign this guy. And I said, show me a contract today that was signed that you would like the Penguins to have

because I haven't seen a single one. Yeah, I mean, and I think that's like Penguins Twitter has, I think, just been overreacting today. We're about to get to the Brock McGinn contract, which is, of course, the biggest news. But I think a lot of people on Penguin's Twitter have just been overreacting. Well, Ron Hextall's not doing anything. why isn't he signing this goalie or why isn't he doing this? It's like there's still two more months left of the off season. Heck, I think there's two and a half more months left

before their opening night game against the Tampa Bay Lightning down in Tampa. But it's just, you know, even as Hextall said, they're still looking for upgrades on the free agent market. I think he said with trades at his media press conference, he's not going to tip his hand on the goalies. He's not going to publicly come out and trashed just Dhrastroston Jari and Casey to say that just kills their value. But, you know, speaking about the media.

begin contract to start here, Chad. Those that are unaware, four years, 2.75 million per. This is basically, I tweeted this out with looking at hockey viz and evolving hockey stuff. This is your Brandon TANF replacement. He is a cheaper version of him, not as fast, but I think he can provide more offense than TANF did. And he had a pretty good season last year with Carolina. Just what are your thoughts on the deal overall? Yeah, he won't have as good as memes as Brand Tenev did.

I mean, TANF was one of those guys that I don't think a lot of Penns fans were able to be rationally objective about because he's one of those polarizing players where if you're a fan of his, I feel like you weren't willing to look at any of his shortcomings. And I like TANF. I like the energy he brought to the team. I like his skating ability. Obviously, he does all the cool things that people like. He hits and he and he yells at players and stuff like that. But if we're just looking at his pure, you know, hockey abilities, doesn't really generate offense. He did score more goals last year. He was on pace to actually score

close to 20 goals, but I don't see that sustaining. And he's never done that in his career. Brock McGinn definitely has more offensive upside. And he's cheaper. So you clear $800,000 a cap space, and you don't really lose anything as far as a drop off. I'm not even worried about TAN. I always thought TANF was more replaceable than a lot of Penn's fans had thought that he was. I'm more worried about replacing Jared McCann's productivity because I don't think Brock McGinn can do that. I think McGinn is a, and if he's on your third line, fine. Ideally, you would actually probably want him to be on your fourth line.

But I imagine he'll be on that third line with Jeff Carter. But he could play with Teddy Bluger. And I tell you what, he's very good defensively. So if they do go with Bluger McGinn and Ashton Reese, I mean, again, that's a shutdown line. That's a defensive specialty unit that you're going to be able to deploy against the other team's top forwards and feel good that you know that you're not going to bleed shots and bleed goals but i i do the one thing i'm starting to panic with is and i saw y'all jerry mccann you can

replace him you can replace him he was making less than three million dollars and was over a 40 point pace the last two seasons and was at a 50 point pace last season was fourth on a team and goals where where where is this production being replaced from i i i don't know so that's the one concern I have right now. Yeah, I agree with you on that. I think that is probably my biggest concern with the team. I mean, sure, they need a goalie, but I think they can trade for someone. That's the biggest concern.

I just actually scored a tweet. Linus Olmark is apparently signed, but they have not announced the destination yet. His agent just said that he's off the market. So I don't know if Ron Hextall just tipped his hand during the press conference. I don't think it's Pittsburgh because I think he's been asking for a bigger contract, but it looks like. Yeah, he was asked for like $6 million. Yeah. That's why I said, like, okay, no, no thanks.

He's the last free agent goalie off the market right now. So if they are going to get a goalie, it is through a trade. But overall, I do agree. They still need, I think, to get another top nine left winger. I've touched on her on the podcast numerous times, Chad, bring home Brandon Sott at a nice cheap rate. He's still out there. He's still there. Elliot Friedman linked to him in the blog.

I think you said it last night late. I think they might get outbid for him, which rightfully. I think evolving hockey has him at four years, $4.9 million per. So don't really think the penguins can go there. But, yeah, McGinn, you can put him on either line. It doesn't matter to me. You want to put him with Jeff Carter and, you know, maybe a combination of Dominic Simone down there and Evan Rodriguez.

Okay, you want to put him with Ashtamese and Bluger? Okay. Then he's just a full-on-tana replacement. He also, as Jesse Marshall said, he can kill penalties very well, which is something that they were missing with TANF leaving. He was honestly, I think, one of their best penalty killers. But I really don't have a lot of problems with the signing, man. I mean, I think people were overreacting to it saying that the penguins were prioritizing the wrong things.

I think this one's fine. I do agree there are more pressing matters with the team. But it's still good to get this one locked up and then going to the next priorities going into the season. Yeah, I will say. So, I mean, I'm fine with being patient with Ron Hextall because that's what he's known for. And I talked to a lot of Flyers fans and podcasters and bloggers. And that was the thing was sometimes he was a little too, you know, that's one thing to be impulsive like Jim Rutherford,

but it's another thing to be like, I'll just keep waiting and waiting. And then it's like, then you go to do something. It's like, well, wait, there's no more players available. So that is a concern because, you know, he does need to do something. He said today that he's fine with Jari and to Smith. Now he's not going to come out there and say, yeah, we're looking for a goalie. Jari sucks. Like he's not going to say that.

So, you know, I'm not going to take anything into that because there have been legit reports. I was listening to Rob Ross there day. He said, yes, Ron Huxdahl has absolutely called other teams about goaltenders. Darcy Kumpur being one of the guys they've absolutely inquired. And Elliott Freeman backed that report up as well. It takes two to tango because what's going on right now is everybody wants Marcus Pederson to be traded. For one thing, I think Marcus Pedersen is a way better player than a lot of Pittsburgh fans are giving them credit for. Yeah.

He's a very capable second pair of defensive defenseman. He doesn't have a horrible contract. If anything, Mike Matheson has a way worse contract than Pedersen. And looking at some of the defensemen that were signed today and some of the defensemen that were traded this week, Pedersen's, I would take Pedersen over a majority of those guys. So I would assume that if Rutherford was off, or, wow, Rutherford, if Hxtall was offering Pederson that someone would be interested. But then again, what are you getting back in return?

because Rob Rossi said yesterday that he's not interested in just sending off Pedersen for Cap Space, he's looking to get a player in return. He's looking to make a hockey trade, so you need a dance partner for that. I'm assuming that means that he's probably trying to trade Pedersen and someone else for a goaltender and another player to be named. And that's what I would look to do anyway. Yeah, no, I agree with you. I think it's some combination, honestly, like Pedersen and Zucker.

I think they're trying to package both of them. maybe it's Pedersen Jari, maybe Zulker Jari, but I think that's probably what you're looking at when it comes to just hockey trade. And you're right, you know, Brendan Dillon just went for two second round picks. I'm sure if Ron Hextal wanted to, he could get a team, you know,

maybe like the Canucks or something, to trade a second round pick for Marcus Pedersen. I'm sure it would not be that hard. Heck, seeing some of the trades the last few days, someone maybe would even take Mike Matheson off their hands because... Yeah, yeah. No, seriously, because Matheson didn't play terrible last year. I still think he's the worst contract on a team,

but he's better than some of the guys that I've seen signed today. Yeah, absolutely. And so I really, and I get what you're saying. You know, sometimes, you know, there's being too patient, but I think right now we still got to be a little patient to see what he does. If this is the same, I think, going into training camp, okay, then maybe he'll probably be a bit too patient and he'll speed something off. That's where I'm at.

If you go into training camp with Jari and D. to Smith again and try to sell me and sell other people on the fact that you believe this team can win a Stanley Cup. At that point, then I'm going to agree with all these other hot takes of, yeah, what are you doing? Because I don't believe the Penguins could win a Stanley Cup with Tristan Jari as their starting goaltender. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, then I think I would actually agree with what they're saying.

You know, right now I'm still going to have the jury open for discussion. I've got to think that he'll have something done by then. But again, no one is going to take you serious if you have both these goalies coming back and you don't have a move. I mean, Philip Lindbergh is probably not going to come up from Wilkesbury and take their job. You know, he's never really played pro hockey before. I'm sure he's probably going to be the starter in Wilkesbury from what Hextall said after, during the media press conference, excuse me. But this is, he's probably not going to walk through that door and start for you.

year he's probably still at least a couple years away, I would think. But there's still options out there, Chad. I mean, you know, Darcy Kemper, we already touched on him. If they want to go out and get another hometown kid and John Gibson, you know, you're probably going to have to part with the farm because Anaheim is going to ask for quite a bit. Otherwise, I mean, well, there are another situation that I was noticing. The Stars signed Braden Holpey today. They have four goalies down there.

Yeah. Ben Bishop, I think, is going on LTIR to start the season from what I read. I think he's still really banged on. I just read a tweet that Hadobin is going to be available. Yeah, so. There's another goalie right there. He's a bit older, Chad. But he can definitely push Tristan Jari for that starting position.

And there's always Mark Andre Fleary. We haven't even got to him. And heck, I said on the podcast yesterday, I've always rolled my eyes at it, man. But it actually makes so much sense now to do it. It makes sense now. I don't know if it's feasible. You know, everybody's saying, you know,

call Buffalo, offer them Jari. And then, you know, do the three-way trade with, Chicago. Here's a thing. I wonder if Chicago's willing to call people's bluff on that because if Flurry is going to retire, they, they're not going to get penalized for that. So I imagine you would need to offer them some kind of incentive to get him to get him

from them, right? I mean, because they have no reason to trade him. Their thinking is, the way I'm seeing is, hey, if he plays for us, now we have a Vezna winning bully. you know, and you'll at least probably make the playoffs.

If he retires, you know, we have $7 million of cap space. Yep, exactly. And if you do go through Buffalo and it's a three-way trade, I discussed this yesterday, man, you could have Flurry's salary for like below $2 million for next season, which would be awesome. Yeah, I mean, excuse me, they would have to. They would have, I mean, here's the thing about Flurry.

$7 million is, I don't care, I've always been, you know, unless you have Patrick Waugh or you have, Dominic Hashek or Vazelleschi or Lundquist. I've never been a fan of paying any goaltender above like six million the year. Like six million's always been my max. That said, I do think going from Jari, here's the thing, if Flurry plays the way he played last season, because you never know what you're going to get with Mark Andre Flurry.

So if Flurry continues to play at a Vezna level, going from this team going from Jari to Flurry, I really do believe they could at least make like a conference finals of here. I think they would be, I mean, they won a division last year, and they lost in the first round primarily because of goaltending. So I hope that Ron Hextall, and I imagine he did inquire about that. I don't think Chicago is like in a hurry to make that trade, though. No, I think they're going to take their time with that.

They're going to try for as long as they can to convince Flurry to play for them. I'm not sure how that's going to go if he decides no. I'm sure he'll give them a list of teams where he'd go to, and I'm sure it would probably be a small list, potentially maybe even being one, that he would go back to because I'm not sure how much he wants to uproot his family. Still a lot more to get to for this episode

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Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the shows Twitter at L.O underscore Penguins. So, Chad, the Penguins, they signed Brockman again, but before that, so a couple little depth moves. I saw some people a little upset about this, too. Honestly, man, I don't really think it's that big of a deal that they chose Evan Rodriguez over Freddie Goodrow. You're basically just splitting hairs, I think.

I guess I would prefer Freddie. I think he's a better player. It has more upside offensively. But if you put Rodriguez in the right role, I honestly think he could have close to 10 goals for the first time next season. I don't know if that's too much of a hot take. But for $1 million, he's cheap.

He played well when he was not playing on Sidney Crosby's line. But I'm fine with that. And then Dominic Simone, a nice welcome back. I know a lot of fans are not going to be happy with that just because he doesn't score, but he's still a good playmaker. good underlying numbers is fine defensively.

Hopefully that shoulder surgery is well past him because I think he can contribute for this team. So just what are your thoughts on those two signings and especially letting Grosw walk? Yeah, I mean, it comes down to dollars. I mean, Grosro got $200,000 more a year than Rodriguez. I was surprised about that because I thought they were both like one, you know, you know, one year, one million dollars. So Bill Garron must have really got some nice feedback from Pittsburgh because he gave

not only more than one, he gave him one more year than I thought he would get. Then he gave him a total of $400,000 more than I thought he would get. So, I mean, hey, props to him because that was really cool for Freddie Godreau. He, you know, dude was kind of HL, NHL, you know, here and there. And then he gets a chance with the Penguins last year. And I mean, he was one of the biggest bright spots on the team, I thought. I really liked his game. That said, Evan Rodriguez is fine.

Again, we're talking about fourth liners here. and Reverend Rodriguez is fine in your fourth line. He's not going to hurt your team. He has speed. He can play center and wing. I prefer him at wing. And they'll probably throw him on the PK as well, I imagine. So what are we really arguing about if we're on Twitter arguing about

Evan Rodriguez and Freddie Godreau? I had someone say, oh, they messed up not getting Frederick Grum. I'm like, again, maybe that's $200,000. Every penny counts. So maybe that way. And they still need to resign Zach Asson Reese. And they still need to resign. Zahorna. So

then you have Simone Sona, Simone, Rodriguez, Ashton Reese, Blugher, five guys that are going to be sprinkled in that bottom sixth. You know, one of those guys are going to, and Simone, two-way contract. So they bring him in the camp. There is a very high possibility

he starts to year off in Wilkesburg anyway. So what does that even matter? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, at best, I think Zohorna is a 13th, 14th forward coming out of the camp. I don't think he'll be in the opening night lineup. People like him because he's tall. I mean, if we're being honest. He did show some flashes last year.

I wouldn't mind giving him a chance in the fourth line. Again, we're talking about the fourth line. I don't think there's any harm in trying any of these guys in the fourth line. Yeah, no, I wouldn't mind that at all. I mean, also I think people like him because the goal he scored. I think it was against the Rangers. I think it was his tape. He was a goal in his first game, I think,

was what it was. Ashton Reese, he'll come in at around, I don't know, two million per, close to Bluger, maybe a bit less. But yeah, I mean, I think I'm fine with Rod Rie. you're really just splitting hairs when comparing him to Freddie Goodrow. You could have picked either one. It really wouldn't have bothered me. But I think the biggest thing with that man was that they didn't want to go the extra year for Goodrow because it probably upped the cap space for it.

You know, if it was one year, you know, just one million or something like that, I think they would have said yes, but two years at 1.2 per, I just don't think they were going to commit to that. No, and that's something that a lot of fans don't think about. I mean, I know. everybody we're focused on this year but you still need to look at your your charts years out and look and see okay well you know Rodriguez again that's a million dollars off the cap next year you know but then you you know what happens if freddie gerrudeau doesn't you know what if happens if he turns back into a pumpkin and you're stuck with that for another year that was that was that was the thing that i didn't like about

rutherford it wasn't sometimes the players that he signed it would be that okay you sign jack johnson but you signed them for five freaking years. You signed, you know, this guy. You signed them for four years. You know, that's what these GMs term to me. A lot of times I really don't care about the cap it. I'm more worried about the term. One year, to me, your fourth liners are always going to be interchangeable every year,

with exceptions. But that's why you always look one to two million dollars for one year deals. These guys are interchangeable. You get a guy that plays with some energy, can play on a PK if needed, and go out there and play for 12 minutes and not be a black hole on your team. That's all you need out of a fourth-flying player in NHL. And I think people just overthink that too much. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, you can't get caved in or lose the shot share or just play bad defensively or whatever. And you are fine. And you can also kill Poundies, you know, like a lot of the players that they acquired today. And again, you know, just going back to Simone, I know a lot of people are going to be mad about it. But, you know, he can play up with Sid in spurts, and it's fine. I'm sorry, that's the reality of the situation. You look at their underlying numbers from the 2020 season when Simone was with Sid and Jake. It was pretty good.

I think it was around 54% of the expected goals, the shot share. The only thing that just didn't happen was the puck was not going in the back of the net. Yeah, I mean, I hope that that doesn't happen. But, again, injuries, you know, this team, especially this team, for real, there's going to be injuries. So that's the thing. Can Brock McGinn go from the third line to the second line? Probably.

Can Zach Asson Reese? You know, I actually think Zach Asson Reese is good enough to be, he's probably going to start in a third line this year. He's going to get a nice little promotion. And McGinn, Carter, and Ashton Reese maybe is your third line. But I actually think Ashton Reese is the guy just because of the way he plays, how defense are responsible he is. his forechecking.

I actually think that could be a guy that they could maybe tinker with in the lineup, especially now that you're not glued to that Tanna, Bluegrass, and Reese line. I actually think Zach Ashton Reese is a guy that I wouldn't mind maybe seeing play a support role with either Malcolm or Crosby, you know, maybe Malc, Crosby, Gensel, and then Ashton Reese and Ashton Reese can kind of go do all those little small things, kind of like how Pascal Dupuy used to do. And the same with Malcolm, Malcolm, Cap, and, okay, well, you know, those are two,

offensive-minded guys so let's throw Zach Astris on there so that he could always make sure somebody's out there playing defense with that line. So that's actually a guy that I would look to maybe tinker with in the lineup and see what we can do with them. Yeah, I would actually be down with that. You know, I've always wanted him to slide up the lineup quite a bit. You know, I always, I mean, I always loved him on the fourth line because he really, everyone knows that he drives that line. He is the heartbeat. He is the engine that makes that time. Not everybody, but most people that know hockey knows. I would hope so. I would hope that everyone that now that finally realizes when how good asterneries was last past year

sees that he's the engine that drives this line it was not brandon tannive teddy bluger's good but it is not teddy bluger either it is asternice and with how great defensively he is not just on the team but overall for the league and i think he could be honestly awesome on any given line i'm just looking at twitter right now is why recording and mike hoffman goes to the montreal canadians for four point five million per so that is just a that's a interesting overpayment there um which you look, we'll get to something else coming up the next segment, Chad, but when you look at the rest of the off season,

what do you want them to prioritize at right defense? Do you have any targets in mind for that? Because, you know, obviously Cody C.C. left for the Oilers. Four years, 3.5 million per. Good luck with that, Ken Holland, by the way. Are you comfortable promoting Chad Rueel, or do you think

they should go outside the organization for that? Everybody, I talk to like off the record or, you know, you and I are kind of in the same circle. Like everybody I talked to says they love Mark Friedman. I mean, I don't know what they're seeing that I'm not seeing.

But I've been told by countless people that Hextaw and Burke and all those guys in the front office and even Sullivan, they think Friedman, they think that was like a super steal of a git. And, you know, that's why as soon as they got them, they threw him in a lineup, I would be shocked if Mark Friedman isn't on a third pair opening night.

Just based off of everything. On the side, do you think? On the right side? That would be. a little interesting. But, I mean, that's where they're at. I mean, you look at their defensive core right now. You have Latang, Dumlin, Marino Pedersen, and then Matheson, Riedel, and Friedman.

And then I know they want to eventually get Joseph in that lineup as well, which is why they probably do need to move either Matheson or Pedersen. No, I look at Freeman and Arendel as stopgap players. ideally you want those guys to be your healthy scratch and then if one of your regular guys gets hurt, that's who you throw in in there for a couple games. To start the season off with my choice being Roedo and Friedman as my six and seven, I definitely think you lose some quality there. And also, who's playing the penalty kill?

Because Cody Cici was, I mean, he was a huge bright spot for this team last year on the penalty kill. So who takes that role? Because I'm looking at the lineup and I'm like, okay, like Pedersen didn't play on a PK, hardly at all. Matheson, you throw Mike Matheson on the PK? So that's really where my concern is. So I would maybe, I don't have anybody in mind right now, to be honest.

But I would look, if you're looking at, you know, if Hextall is looking to trade Pedersen or still looking to trade Zucker, I think if you're going after a goalie, what I would look for is to maybe throw, have a, a team throw in a third pair guy that can play the PK, preferably on the right side. The problem is right side defensemen are hard to come by. Yeah, it's a, it's a tough commodity to get.

Especially one that can play on the PK. Yeah, I tweeted out Mark Pizek last night, and then I realized that he doesn't play the PK, and I was like, oh, damn it, like, that's not, that's not good at all. So it'll be sure to see what they do there. I mean, I had not heard about the Friedman thing. That's great that you know about that. They love them.

Ask them. Ask around. They love them. Yeah, I had not heard that and take it out. but, you know, I don't work for the penguins. Yeah, I had not heard that until now. So thank you for that scoop for me and all the listeners, of course, for the podcast. But, yeah, I think at some point they probably will have to go out and sign someone. I was thinking, honestly, they were going to sign Bogosian, who went back to Tampa Bay.

Because he's that hard-nosed defenseman that Brian Burke loves to get, I'm sure, and it plays tough and all that. But obviously, that can not happen. And he went back to the lightning. Still a little more to get to for this episode up in the next segment. just a couple more things I want to bring up with Chad. Before we get to that, though, we do have to touch on Bet Online, the fastest, easiest way to bet on your sports action.

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on your first deposit. That's Better Aline, your online sportsbook experts with the promo code locked on. All right, welcome back to this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes'all. This shows Twitter at L.O. and Swar Penguins. Chad, there's still some good players left out there.

You know, two targets that I had in mind. I wrote about Tomas Tatar about a week and a half ago. It makes so much sense. There's been nothing about him. I don't really understand why. I think he's a good player. Nothing about Brandon Saad today either. Of course, I've been touching on the hometown kid, I think, for the last week or something.

If one of those prices comes down for Pittsburgh and they get Ashton Reese at a nice number, I could totally see them trying to get one of those players in to improve the top nine. I think it makes a lot of sense. You lose McCann. And then your left wing side, you can go, especially if Zucker's not traded, you can go Gensel, one of Sadr to Tar, and then Zucker, and then whoever you want, whether it's like, you know, McGinn or, you know, Ashton Reese. That's pretty good for your left side, because your right side is already pretty strong. I think too.

Well, that's what I like about Brandon Saud does. Brandon Saud can play both. He can play both wings. So that's what I've all liked about him. The only thing with Saud is he's 29. So I know we were like, no more 29-year-old wingers. But he can still play. I saw some really weird takes about Brandon Saud where, oh, he's not good anymore.

And when you look at the metrics, and I know, oh, the metrics, we can't. They're good. And he scored seven goals and 10 games in the playoffs this year for Colorado. So the thing about Sade is he's good at, he's, when you're looking at what Jeremy McCann did great, Brandon Saut is going to replace that perfectly because he can skate. He loves the north-south up-tempo and he loves coming in off that, off that left side and ripping one towards the net. Literally, I mean, that's what Jerry McCann was, was known for.

And so I would actually add a nice little bit of size. He's almost 6-2, but he can skate. So, yeah, I mean, I'd be fine with either one of those guys. the problem is, again, they need a trade partner for either Mike Mathis or Marcus Pedersen because cap space-wise, they have $3 million, a little over $3 million right now, and they still need to do Aston Reese. I think Aston-Reece is probably going to get $1.5 million, and then Zahorner will probably get your typical, like, $7,000 to $9,000 two-way contract.

So after all that, you're going to be left with, like, less than a million dollars in cap space. So you need to do something, or else you're going to be. into the season with this with this team basically yeah i mean i would be all for it and you can put them on any one of those three lines too you can put them with sid put them on gino's left wing with cappin saw i've always envisioned sod playing with malcon absolutely always envisioned a sod malcon captain and the second line would be probably the best second line they've had in a little while i i would say absolutely you could put them on jeff carter's line and i'm sure they would tear it up together

but in a perfect world you would obviously want zucker down there um Tatar, again, man, he might even come cheaper, has better underlying numbers. And he's not just a pure goal score. He's a playmaker, too. Well, for some reason, his stocks down. I talked to Dejohn about this. After we were at the Dejon, the DK Sports meeting greeting. He was saying that, you know, he was like, there's something about him that we don't know

because, you know, he's got scratched to playoffs. I guess Dejon was insinuating that there may be. maybe some kind of behavior issues or personality issues. But again, sometimes I kind of roll my eyes about that. If you know hockey culture, sometimes anyone that's ever played hockey or covered hockey will know that it's kind of like a boys club atmosphere a lot of times. And if you don't go along with the group, a lot of times guys get shunned and stuff like that. So I don't know if that necessarily means that he's, you know, has issues like that.

But listen, I'm willing to give a guy a chance. And if anything, it benefits a team that's going to sign him because they're probably going to get him for less value than he's actually worth. Yeah. Honestly, I've been saying that contract is going to be a steal for whoever gets in because it's obviously, it looks like he's not going to sign in Dave Warner free agency right now. Heck, it might even be a week or two until he signs. And you're going to get great value for someone who can play on a nightly. basis.

I still don't understand why he was scratched for Montreal over, you know, players like Jake Evans or whatever or something like that. I don't really get it. But, you know, there's going to be some bargain deals to have there. And, you know, if it's the Penguins cap space with then still having stuff to do, excuse me, I would be all for it. Is there anything else you would like to see the team do this offseason, Chad? Yeah, goalie.

It sucks to beat a dead horse. but again, it's going to be a tough. This is like when the pirates traded McCutcheon and Garrett Cole, and then their general manager came out and were like, we're trying to compete for a World Series this year. And I was like, don't lie to me like that. Like, just telling me that you're rebuilding because that's what you're doing. And so, again, if you're coming into the season with Tristan Jari

and you're expecting me to see any kind of boat of confidence that this team's going to compete for a Stanley Cup, I'm not feeling it. They'll probably still be a playoff team. But we've been that, right? Is that where we're at? That's we're just treading water at this point. You know, I know Cindy Crosby would like to win another Stanley Cup before his career is over.

And I'm pretty sure if you put a gun to Cindy Crosby's head and said, hey, do you think you can win a Stanley Cup with Justin Jari? He'd probably tell you no. And again, I'm not trying to throw, you know, Jari completely under the bus. I do think that he's an NHL goalie. I don't think he's an NHL starting goaltender. And he's getting paid $3.5 million. and Rutherford is the one that put them in this position. It sucks that Matt Murray didn't pan out.

I know that that's what this franchise, that's why they're in the spot they are because they had hedged their bets on Matt Murray and it didn't work out. So that's fine. So then you re-evaluate things and you go, listen, we have to go get a goalie. If Arizona wants a first-round pick for Darcy Cumber, I know we're tired of giving first-round picks away.

I might have to do it. A goalie is worth a jarring and a first-round pick. round pick for Darcy Cumber, I'm doing that deal all day. Yeah. So that's, that's where we're at. So I will get, right now, I'm fine. You know, the Brock McGinn signing and all these fourth line guys, I'm not sweating that at all because I really don't think the fourth line matters all that much.

If they go into the season with Tristan Jari, you will start to see me become more and more pessimistic. Yeah, I think, like I said, yeah. If it gets closer to training campaign, they don't have some of these upgrades, Chad. I definitely agree with you all start to get a little more pessimistic about the season. But the good thing is, man, two and a half months. That's the biggest thing until opening night. They have plenty of time for this.

So, yeah, we'll wait and see. Like I said, you know, when you talk to anyone that's covered the Flyers or any Flyers fans, if you talk to them about Ron Eckstall, they'll tell you very good at scy's scouting, very good, he's very good at drafting. He's very savvy in trades. You look at the trades that he did make. He didn't lose hardly any of those trades. He actually made a lot of really good trades.

and a lot of, and signed guys to really, like, Sean Cotorier, when he signed Sean Cotorier, a very good contract. But a lot of times he would sit, you know, they call it sitting on your hands. And that's what he's doing right now. And I've already had some Flyers fans that I know message me and be like, see, I told you, he's just going to wait for everybody else to do. Then he'll be like, oh, now I need to make a move.

Yeah. The problem with doing that sometimes is then you put yourself in a position where, you know, you're not going to get the guy that you want. So yeah well hopefully that does not happen for the rest of the offseasoning here but um chat i want thank you coming on uh this episode of locked on penguins i'm really appreciated i'm definitely going to have you on at some point here again for the all season and of course during the season um again always love your shows um with eddie you know congratulations again on i'm probably being parted with dk and you know just i can't wait to listen to your show this friday as well

because i'm just i'm going to give it to you you can plug in whatever you want just with the show and mad chat netty show at dk pittsburgh sports dot com every Friday and then I also believe we have some other content coming up in the works we've we're experimenting with me either doing like a Penn's post game reaction show or maybe like a live stream or like a fan forum we day does fan forums for the pirates and a lot of times though I'll yell at I just bring people on from Twitter I feel like that's always good to interact with other people not just like the same people we always hear from so we're

We're doing some other content, experimenting with some other content. But yeah, Eddie and I show every Friday, DK.Pittsburgsports.com. Yeah, that's, again, always love your show. It is a must listen to everyone. Every single week, they do honestly one of the best shows in the city. So, again, appreciate you coming on. Follow him on Twitter. Yeah, thanks for having me, man.

We'll get you on. Right now, we're a little Steelers heavy, but with this news coming up, I'm sure we're going to be talking to some pens. Yeah, no worries at all. You know, follow him. Twitter at my Chad 412

I almost forgot you're at there for a second like a moron but uh thank you all so much for listening to this episode and I will talk to you all

tomorrow