Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Is there momentum building towards a Kris Letang deal?

Episode Date: July 2, 2022

It's finally July! The offseason continues to rage on and the news with the Pittsburgh Penguins never sleeps. Hunter starts the show by touching on the latest regarding Kris Letang as Elliotte Friedman gave an update on 32 Thoughts. Are the two sides getting closer? What's the gap now? Hunter shares some optimism towards a new deal as he's feeling more confident about a deal getting done with Letang than he does with Malkin. He also touches on the David Pagnotta update and whether there's a chance that Letang's AAV could be below 8. Following that, Hunter gives his thoughts on the rumors that the Penguins are discussing a new deal with Casey DeSmith. There are some conflicting reports, but which way should the Penguins go? Is it right to look for a new backup? Has DeSmith done enough to earn that job for a third straight season? Finally, Hunter ends the show with a little more draft talk as he gives a couple more names that could be available to them, plus takes a listener's question about a potential free agent fit.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!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.BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts!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.

Hello there. Happy Friday. I'm recording this on Friday evening and to all my Canadian listeners up there, happy Canada day. Thank you all so much for listening to the show. And I hope you all have been having a wonderful day celebrating your extraordinary country. We have a lot to get to for today's episode. I hope you all enjoy the crossover with Dan of Locked on Capitals. No, again, I do not want that Evgeny Malkin to go to the Capitals. But for today, there's updates from Elliott, Friedman on Chris Tang and I'm getting Malkin. We're going to get to that. Also, there was an update from David Pagnotta about Latang a little later on in the day. I'll get to that. And also, Pagana talked about DeSmith and how the Penguins could be potentially

bringing him back. I'll give my thoughts on that a little later on the episode. And we're getting closer to having a full draft primer. That's going to be next week. But I'll potentially give you all a couple more names to look for at the 21 spot for this episode. I'm just teasing a couple more names for you all. and I have a full draft episode sometime next week.

So let's all get, let's get into it right after this drop. 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 another episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I am your host, Hunter Hoodies. You want to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, follow the show's Twitter, at L-O, Narsal Penguins. And of course, thank you all so much for making this your first listen of the day.

So let's get into it. Some big updates from Elliot Friedman on the 32 Thoughts podcast from this morning. And then David Pagnata was also getting into some things on 937, the fan later on in the day. But Friedman, so it was about the seven-minute mark of the episode with Jeff Merrick. And he lumped Let's hang in with Forresberg because, you know, Horstberg, he's been beloved and Nashville, for the last several years, Latang, the same thing, though it's been a lot longer, to say at least, but this is what Freeman had to say. There are teams out there who are interested in both players who have told me that they think

there is a path to a deal for both players to resign with their respective teams. I know that confused a couple people when I tweeted out. What that means is other teams see a path for the penguins to agree to a deal with Latang and for the predators to agree to a deal with Philip Forsberg. Freedman also reported that it sounds like the gap of that 1.1.125 million gap that that had been reported a couple weeks ago. That has shrunk a little bit. It's probably maybe, I don't know, $750K to a million now or something like that. I think I saw a few people throw that number out there. I couldn't, I didn't confirm that while listening to it. At least I didn't hear him say that.

But, you know, this is good news. And you know, David Pagnano, I lump that in here too. He said on 937 the fans today that, you know, he thinks it's probably going to be somewhere between 7 million to 8 million and that the two sides have made progress on a new deal. So as of right now, it's funny because, you know, when I started the offseason, I was like, I kind of think Malkin's going to come back, but I'm kind of not sure about Lantang. Now I flip-flopped. I'm, I'm, what odds I want to say to this? I'm about 80 to 90% sure that Chris Lattang is going to come back.

but with Malkin, it's probably, you know, maybe 40, 60 that he doesn't, 45, 55, something like that. It's crazy again, I just, it's, it's really just, it's flip-flopped. It's crazy. But in the Penguins, I've said this so many times already, they are right to prioritize Latang. They want to see where his number comes in. So, you know, that, you know, that in turn, you know, how much money we have for Mollinger? What about Ricard Raquel? What about an extension for Tristan Jari?

Which is, I think, Danoogovych has been talking about on his daily shot of penguins. What about Evan Rodriguez? Dan and Heinek is very cabinet, et cetera, et cetera. So they want to get, let's hang out of the way. They know he's going to be the biggest number. And then from then on, they can see, okay, that's part of the jigsaw puzzle done. How are we going to do the other things? And in terms of the AAV, I would kind of be stunned if that number is below eight.

I have been beating the drum four times eight, five times eight on this show a lot during the offseason. You know, right now I'm thinking it probably comes in between 8.1 to 8.5. I don't think he gets over 8.5. And now if he hits the market, I could see a team maybe giving him over that. But in terms of the Penguins with how, you know, their salary cap situation, I would think that he will get, you know, 8.5 or a little bit below. I think that's probably as high as Ron Hextall wants to go. Now, I could see them giving him an extra year or two to bring that cap number down.

So say they do give him that fifth year, which would take him to his age 40 season, right? So, you know, maybe the AAV somehow goes below eight. Maybe it's like 7.98 or, you know, 7.8, something around those lines. That would be good. Sure, is the term a little bit scary? Yeah, but you have the AAV down below eight, which would be huge. you know that that would be a massive win for the penguins it would probably be a bigger win for them than the brian rust extension that what we saw um a little over a month ago when they agreed to that

six year term and the a a v was a little only a little over five million i thought that was a great deal executed by ron hextall you know a lot a lot of people were expecting him to get six times six potentially seven times seven in phragedy because he was probably one of the best wingers that was going to make the open market um so now it's it's trending in the the right direction in terms of LaTang hopefully within the next 11 to 12 days a deal is reached I will be I have all the insiders notifications on it you all will be the first to know when a deal is struck if if a deal is struck so really good news from multiple outlets today on LaTang but again you know it for Malkin you know not as much you know Elliott has said numerous times on his show that you know

they've agreed on a three-year term but the money is not closed so again I think think once they hopefully have Latang done, they're going to really circle back to Malkin, dig in on that negotiation, and they're going to talk about a number that potentially works for both sides. I don't know what they're offering him right now. I know Rob Rossi and Josh Joey, I think it was mainly Rob said it might have been in the fives, which is way too low. I mean, that's just a low ball offer for getting Malkin at that point. It has to be at least six, probably 6.5. You know, I would like, again, because say it is so superstitious, if you can sign Gino for 7.1 million per, you know, that would be awesome. You know, three times, three times

that, three years at least. I think that's something you do every day of the week, in my opinion. So, you know, that was just, that was the big updates for today and, you know, the last couple of days with regards to the contracts negotiations of Chris saying in the Gening Malkin, you know, If I had to make a prediction for how it goes right now. Again, I think Letang is going to be on the team next year. And right now, I'm going to say Malkin isn't. But, you know, a lot, there's still a lot of time ago. Hopefully both are on the team next year.

Right now, I'm thinking it's only going to be Latang, because it just, it looks like it's trending that way. The momentum is starting to really build. All these reports are positive. And I know that, you know, Ron Hexton and, and Christine, you know, they're not talking. I was listening to that That's Hockey Talk podcast with Mike Rubbin. He said he spoke to LaTang the other day, and he tried to get an answer out of them, and he just gave him a look.

He's like, I'm not going to talk about that. Because, you know, they made an agreement at the end of the regular season when they both were speaking to the media that, you know, we're not going to negotiate through the media. We're not going to give updates and all that sort of stuff. You know, I don't doubt that Elliot Friedman has very good sources. I mean, he has plenty of contacts around the league. I believe him when he says that, you know, there has been a little bit momentum and that he's

talk to teams who have said that they see a potential path to a deal being made with the Penguins. So I don't doubt that in the slightest. So I want to give you all some good news to start out this segment for Friday's episode of Locked in Penguins podcast. You know, maybe something happens over the weekend. Who knows? But, you know, we're getting into crunch time here. The draft is next week for agencies the week after. The Penguins, they're going to really have to be digging deep here if they want to keep either one or both players. coming up in the next segment, we're going to get into David Pagnato's report about Casey DeSmith, and I'll give my thoughts on whether or not it's a good move that he could potentially be coming back.

So look for that coming up here in the next segment. But before I get to that, bedline.net is your number one source for all of your betting needs and sports info. You can find all the latest sports developments, league reviews and news, including this year's NHL playoffs, and Major League Baseball. Betonline is your continued source for all of your sports wager information, including live betting, e-sports, and more. and Betelline remains the best spot for all of your sports scores, podcasts, and news this season. Banline.net is the fastest, easiest way to check in on all your favorite sports events,

including MMA, boxing, and golf. You can head to the website today or use your phone to learn more about the trends in action. That is Ben Online, where the game starts. All right, I'm back here on this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I am your host, Hunter Hodes. You're going to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. You can also follow all the shows Twitter at L.R.S. Penguins. So, no, there's definitely, I think, some conflicting information out there when it comes to

Casey DeSmith. I was reading Josh Yew's story on the Athletic on Thursday, and he was discussing, you know, who stays and who goes, a portion of the offseason from talking to people, either inside or outside the organization. And he's been, he's been, you know, steadfast on reporting that DeSmith is not coming back next year. He says that Hextall, it sounds like they want to potentially outside the organization to get a backup for Jari. But then, David Pagnada of the fourth period comes in. And this is on yesterday. If I can find this report here real quick, if I can find the tweet that I had, at least for it.

And where did we? I have no idea. But, you know, Pagnotter was reporting that it sounds like the Penguins and to Smith are in negotiations for a potential new contract. Yeah, yeah, here, I was I screwed you. I went through it. He says the penguins are trying to sign to Smith through new contract. It's not yet imminent, but the two sides are working at it. We'll see if they get there in the next two weeks or less.

My thoughts on this, I think it's time to move on. I think DeSmith is too inconsistent. I understand that he was a good backup after January, after February he found his game, but he also was playing hurt most of that time. And then his groin area, whatever it was, gave out on him during the playoffs. He had to miss. this is the second straight year that he's had to miss the playoffs. Remember last year he was healthy actually going into the playoffs.

They were having one of their first practices before this series against the Islanders. And he tore something. I don't think it was a core muscle injury, but he tore something in the lower part of his body. And I remember reading a report that he was just like throwing his stick, going into the locker. And he knew that something was up at that point. And, you know, had he not done that in Tristan Jari was melting down,

you know, maybe DeSmith comes in. and actually saves them in one of those games against the Islanders. But, you know, this is, again, this is two straight seasons now where, you know, he's gotten hurt towards the end of the season. And, you know, I think this is also mainly two straight seasons where, you know, he's been inconsistent a lot of times. I just, you know, I think it's time to make a change at that backup position. I really don't think you can go three years and three seasons in a row running the same

goaltending tandem. You know, and I know it's a one in a million draw that both of your starting goaltenders are out for the playoffs. You know, it's just that basically never happens to say the least. But, you know, do you really still want to run that small risk again? Do you want to also run the risk that he's going to be really bad to start the season like he was this past year? And then Tristan Jari just looks burnt out by the end of the regular season. I think they need to bring in someone who's a veteran who has proven that he can put up better numbers than Smith,

who has proven that he can handle a potential service work, starters workload at times. And there are a few options out there for cheap. And I said that to a couple followers on my social media channels the other day. Braden Holby, I think, is a perfect fit. He is going to market now. Scott Wedgwood is going to be Jay Gottinger's backup in Dallas. He signed, I believe it was a two-year deal, a little over a million per year.

Hopefully there's no room for him to be on that team. So there is an option right there for the payments. and I think he would welcome a chance to come to Pittsburgh. I think he could potentially get 30 to 35 games a season. I just don't think that, you know, DeSmith deserves another go at it. That's just, that's my opinion. Would I be upset if they signed him? Probably not because, you know, in all, honestly, the goaltending market, you know,

there's some options out there, but in terms of like a true backup, there's not really too many. You can do worse than to Smith. but you know i also think they will have at least a little bit of cap room to do a little bit better for him and it's funny that my dog is just he's he's looking at me as i'm recording this he's been a little sick the last couple of days but um i'm not sure if he's agreeing with me or not you're you're agreeing with me buddy yeah i think he he did a crooked head so i'd like to think that he thinks i'm right with that anyways getting back to what i was saying um you know if if they do

him it's probably going to be a one year deal one one point two million something like i don't think he's going to get to a 2.5 million to be jrish nari's backup i think it's going to be a lot cheaper than that but you know it is funny that you know they're in negotiations for him right now at least according to pagnata um even though obviously josh oh he's reporting something different but you know they're also doing the christa tang thing and they're kind of playing a little hardball with i'm gonna malkin so not really sure where ron hextall's priorities are right now that's definitely a little bit weird to say the least. But there's still a long way to go. This dismissing is probably going to go down to the wire, I think, too. If I had to guess,

I don't think he'll be signed back if none of their other options that are available to them sign with the Penguins on Free Agent Day, which is July 13th. So as I'm recording this right now, that is 12 days away. But I don't know. I just, I think, you know, it's, again, It's time for a fresh start there. And, you know, Frank Saravella, you know, he also reported in some of his rumblings on Daily Faceoff that he thinks the Penguins will be on the goaltending market this year to get a capable veteran backup for Tristan Jari. And I think a lot of other fans in the fan base have been saying this as well. You know, I've been beating that drama, especially when I did dismiss season review. That's passion, you know, I've been, you know, saying that, you know, he was.

good down the stretch probably played a little bit better than Jari. But I also add that up to, you know, Jari, he played in almost 60 games this year. That's too much for him. You know, if he can be playing, you know, maybe 45 to 50 somewhere around those lines and you have a capable backup that can put up maybe like a 9-12, 9-17 to 917s, percentage, I think the penguins are winning in that regard because, you know, you go down here and you look at the stats, you know, to Smith this season played, 26 games was a little below goals stayed above expected minus 0.6 there. 914 total

save percentage 2.79 goals against average. His expected goals against average is 2.77. You know, in terms of, you know, where Tristan was, you know, where he finished outside the top 10, 919, saved 13 goals above expected, 2.42 goals against average for there. And, you know, a 914 save percentage, that's fine. You know, you can mainly win with that. But, you know, the goal stayed above expected part that, you know, that that's the one I think that's getting me a little bit and the fact that his goals against average was almost three as well. So that wraps up the second segment of Friday's episode. Coming up in the third segment, I'm going to get to a couple more names that could be on the Penguins radar at pick number 21. I will say this. I have,

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That's promo code locked 15 for 15% off at built.com. All right, I'm back here on this episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast. I am your host, Honor Hodes. Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, follow this show's Twitter at L.O. underscore Penguins. I'm just loading something up here on my phone. So I this is big though. Me and Jason's a big board for the penguins is just about complete.

Again, I will have a full draft preview episode next week for the penguins in the number 21 draft pick. Okay, hello. I had to take a pause on the recording. So Thron was actually, well, he had to go out because, you know, he's still only a five-month-old puppy. And it was getting back to what I was saying. So Jason and I, opinion, Twitter, we are just about done with our draft board. I have a full draft episode copy up next week. But I wanted to touch on a couple other players who I think could be available here at 21.

Frank Nizarre, I think he, you know, really strong center, right-hand shot, 175 pounds. You know, a couple of his comps, it looks like from what I've read from, you know, scouting and all this, you know, Joe Pavalski, Braden Point. he could arrive in the next couple of years. You know, he's probably one of the best centers in this draft. Could he go before the Penguins pick? Sure, but I definitely think he could be one of the top candidates to be picked there. And I also will say, you know, Ivan Miro Shaneko, you know, he's going to be really good. And I probably just botched his last name.

Miro Shinnikniko, basically, some of these Russian last names are just insane. to pronounce. Again, left wing, but he also shoots right. A couple of comps for him, Vladimir Teresenko, Timo Meyer. He could arrive as soon as next year. Mero, in my opinion, I personally think that he is a top five talent in this draft. You know, when I go on YouTube and when I watch him play, just has that booming shot, really good skater. You know, his play away from the puck is also pretty strong. I don't think he'll be on the team next year if he's the Penguins pick. But I definitely think that he is also another very strong candidate to be picked if he is there.

And, you know, especially if, you know, the Penguins don't care about the whole situation going on back in Russia. I do think some Russian players are going to fall just due to it. But, you know, I'll be curiously if Ron Hextel and Brian Burke, you know, if they decide, you know, to make a pick with Miro because, again, I think he's probably a top five talent. in this draft class. At least that's how I see it. And we have a comp, you know, like Vladimir Teresenko, and, you know, sure, you know, who knows if he ever lives up to that height. But, you know, I think he has the potential to be a steal when the Penguins pick, at least in my opinion.

Again, I have a full draft preview episode coming up a little later on next week. I did want to get to a question here real quick to end the show. Let me find it here real quick. I believe Jackson, Alster, shout out to you for asking me this. He goes, what do you think about

the penguin signing Kelly Yarncrunk for the bottom six? And Jackson, you know, it's funny because people were asking me about him during the trade deadline. Like, you know, who did the Penguins acquire him?

And, you know, his numbers, they're fine. But my biggest thing, man, you know, I think the Penguins have too many of those kind of players, right? Those defensive first players who, sure,

they can chip in a little bit, right? But, you know, is he kind of maybe just a little bit better than Rock McGinn, a little bit, better than Teddy Blugher, you know, both players who they can chip in offensively, but, you know, they're more so known for playing defense.

You know, same when Zach Ashton-Rees was here and all that stuff. You know, even on the third, well, I shouldn't say on third, because, you know, Rodriguez, he actually, it was more offense, Jeff Carter. He had almost 20 goals last year. Danton Hine had almost 20 as well. So, you know, I just, I think the Penguins said they have too many of those, of these guys in the bottom six. And I also think he's probably going to get a little too much money.

The penguins, a little too much money in friendship, the penguins probably just don't have. They're going to have too many needs, I think, especially if Malkin does sign with another team. I do not think they would bring in Kelly Yarn. I don't think they would even have the space for it, at least in my opinion. So I wanted to get your question onto today's episode.

And that will do it for this episode. Happy July. It's a great time to me. NHL fan. The draft is next week. Frangisies right after that. We're going to be five days a week next week, the week after that. And then most of that next week, we go back to three days a week starting on July 25th. So basically three full weeks left of five episodes a week before, you know, you're not going to get to hear my voice for two of your weekdays starting on the end of July. So again, now I'll do it for this episode. Thank you all so much for a great month of June. Short,

the numbers did drop a little bit just because it's the off season people take breaks you know but when before i was doing this i would do the same thing but you know the numbers from this june compared to last june was not even close um plus a hundred percent in terms of listenership thank you all so much for continuing um to make a lot of history um on the show the road to 500 youtube subscribers continues to get to go um i'm almost at 350 right now um so i guess my short more or my more short-term goal is 400, but I would love to get to 500 in the next few months, hopefully before the regular season. But again, thank you all so much for listening. I hope you all have a great rest of your Friday. And I'll be back with another episode starting

on Monday, the 4th of July.