Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Kyle Dubas makes a HUGE hire for the Penguins front office

Episode Date: July 9, 2024

Penguins President of Hockey Operations Kyle Dubas announced the hiring of Wes Clark on Tuesday - a huge get for the front office. On this edition of the Locked On Penguins Podcast, Patrick and Hunter discuss what this means for the organization moving forward, how it will impact the draft, and if this says something about the Maple Leafs front office. Next, some pundits have said that Kyle Dubas needs to make "bold" trades, but does he? They talk about some players that they could target that qualify more as creative than they would as bold. Finally, Sidney Crosby is hockey and Pittsburgh royalty, but his pop-in at the Copa America tournament shows he's absolutely Canadian royalty. Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!eBay MotorsFor parts that fit, head to eBay Motors and look for the green check. Stay in the game with eBay Guaranteed Fit at eBayMotors.com. Let’s ride. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNHL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.FanDuelFanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook. As playoffs wind down, the sports stop sporting like we want them to. But this summer, FanDuel is hooking up ALL CUSTOMERS with a boost or a bonus, DAILY! That’s right, there’s something for everyone, every day, all summer long! Visit FANDUEL.COMand add a big win to your summer bucket list!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.

Kyle Dubus has continued to add to his front office staff here in Pittsburgh. And yes, once again, he loves his guys. Hunter and I are going to discuss that and more on this edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. Your Locked-on Penguin. Your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome back to another edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Patrick Damp.

You can follow me on Twitter at Synonym 4Wet, joined as always by the one and only Hunter Hodes. You can follow him on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. You can give our show's account a follow at L.O. underscore Penguins. And we thank you for making this your first listener watch of the day because we're your team every day. And don't forget that we are free and available wherever you get your podcasts, as well as YouTube.

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So Hunter, Kyle Dubus gave us some news here in early July that has nothing to do with trades or unrestricted free. agents or anything like that. He has continued to add to his front office staff here in Pittsburgh with the announcement that they have hired West Clark as their vice president of player personnel. His role will be to oversee the club's amateur scouting, professional scouting, college and European free agent scouting departments, and he will report directly to Kyle Dubus.

And this is once again a hire straight out of the Toronto Maple Leafs. He worked very closely with Clark during their time in Toronto. He also is another Sue St. Marie Greyhound, where the two of them worked again very closely with one another during his time in juniors. So there is a lot of familiarity between these two. They have a stated very good working relationship. But the one thing that I wanted to focus on right off the jump here is that while all the headlines out of Toronto as of recently are about their core four, what they're going to do with

Mitch Marner, their inability to win more than a playoff series. They do still have a lot of very good young talent in their system. And West Clark has played a huge role in getting those players into Toronto's system. Right. Let me start off with this. Yes, this is one of Kyle Dubus's guys, but he isn't doing West Clark a quote unquote favor by giving him a job with the Penguins organization. They gave him the promotion with this job. He'll get to oversee everything in the scouting department. Someone like Nick Pryor will now report to West Clark. Andy Sossier also report to West Clark. And then of course, as you said, Clark will report to Kyle Dubus. I'm a big fan of this. You're bolstering the front office quite a bit. Clark

did a really solid job in Toronto when it came to their draft. I mean, his fingerprints were all over a good chunk of their picks, including Easton Cowan, their 2023 first round pick in last year's draft and then also Fraser Mitten, a 22 second round pick. Both prospects are pretty solid overall. This past year, Minton in the WHL, 19 goals, 38 points, and 36 games, then had eight goals of 14 points in 16 games. And then Cowan, I think he's one of the top prospects in the league right now, 34 goals, 96 points in 54 games for the London Knights of the OHL this year.

He then had 34 points in 18 games for London as well. again, he was beautiful with those two selections. And I really do think this is a really sound move for the Penguins organization because you look at the last couple of drafts they've had, right? I think Kyle Dubus has had a pretty good track record with him and Nick Pryor. And Pryor especially has surprised me during that time. I wasn't too big on him kind of staying just because he was kind of a left over from the Hextall tenure. But I think he was doing a pretty solid. a job with Dubus when it came to their draft prep. Now you have someone like West Clark who has been doing this for a bit longer and was also doing a sound job in Toronto. That can only mean good things for this organization going forward. It really can. And I'll say this about prior. I do agree in a sense that it was a little weird that they held on to him after Hextall and Burke were let go. But then you look back at this team's run of drafts for the last few years, even dating back to Ron Hextall.

And they've done a pretty okay job with the picks that they've had. The last two, I think, have been slam dunks. The two before that, there's some gems in there and some guys that we're starting to see make a little bit of a difference within the Penguins organization. So I'm fine with Pryor still being here. I think he's got some kind of a touch that's actually helping them out. But the thing that stands out most to me is you bring up those two names that are currently with the Toronto Maple Leafs, those two.

draft picks. In this furthers Kyle Dubus's want to execute his plan of restocking and rebuilding this team's prospect pipeline. It's no secret that Clark was essentially the guy who ran the draft table for the Toronto Maple Leafs over the past couple of seasons. And for all the pomp and circumstance that follows the Toronto Maple Leafs, all the hot takes, all the drama, they have done an incredible job over the past five, six years and even reaching back a few more at drafting very good talent within their system. And they have been a competitive team in one of the better regular season teams. So they're not picking exceptionally high in the draft.

So this is the kind of higher that you need to make in order to further that idea that you want to rebuild this team's prospect pipeline while still being moderately competitive with the core four that the penguins have right now. So I like this hire a lot. I think it's going to help them find some gems in those mid-range picks. And we didn't even bring up Nick Robertson as well. He was very much behind that pick as well for the Maple Leafs. Again, just a real nice hire.

It's always good when you're bolstering the front office. I felt like heading into this year, the front office wasn't as deep as it needed to be. I honestly figured West Clark was going to be coming over last year when Dubis came over and kind of cleaned house a little bit in the front office. But a year later, I'm still totally okay with it. I just thought it was going to happen last July overall. Yeah, and that's the biggest thing. I know there's going to be a lot of Toronto fans who are upset about this.

And I totally get it because this was not a very clean breakup for Kyle Dubus in the Toronto Maple Leafs. But whether it was Kyle Dubus, whether it was West Clark, Jason Spetsa, whomever, teams can't block people from getting promotions. They are not allowed to do that. You can't say, no, you're not allowed to leave for a promotion. That's just not how the NHL works. And like you said, for West Clark, this is a promotion. This is him essentially getting to run the scouting department.

And that's a very big responsibility because not only is he going to have his hands on the draft, he is going to set the standard for what the penguin scouting staff is looking for, where they're going, who they're looking for, and what they're going to shape their draft strategy around. And then the one other thing I want to add here, and this is more about Kyle Dubus, the Toronto Maple Leafs and all of that, just real quick. At this point, I think it's safe to say the problem in Toronto is Brendan Shanahan. Kyle Dubus, you can be upset with what he did.

He tried to get more power within the Maple Leafs organization. Brendan Shanahan blocked it. He fires them. Kyle Dubus goes and gets the position he wants in Pittsburgh. but you have seen not just Kyle Dubus and not just Kyle Dubus bringing Toronto guys to Pittsburgh. You have seen people from their front office leave for other jobs over the past couple of years. And Brendan Chanahan remains. So they, the Toronto Maple Leafs and MLSE may have to think about how much longer they want to employ Brendan Chanahan.

Well, I mean, we'll have to see what happens this year with the Maple Leafs. If they have another early playoff exit once again, I think that could spell trouble for him there. also you know what could that mean for brandon brittam i figured he was also potentially going to be coming over to the penguins last year that didn't happen toronto kept him if they do have another playoff exit early one could pridem make his way over to pittsburgh as well i mean that was also one of dubus's right-hand men in toronto outside of west clark i could see him coming over to pittsburg at some point too and he's also very good at what he does in toronto's front office too but yeah i do think that he is very much on Shanahan right now, especially if the Leafs don't get the results that they need for this season.

For sure. But to bring it all the way back to Pittsburgh, I like this higher because it's like we've talked about the last few weeks. We know that Kyle Dubus's plan is to do a bit of a soft rebuild here and rebuild the prospect pipeline. And you have to have minds like this who are equipped to make savvy picks when you're not in the top five of the NHL draft or you don't have, excuse me a full slate of picks throughout a certain NHL draft. And by all accounts, Wes Clark has that eye for talent. He knows where to look for it. He knows what leagues to scout.

So for the Penguins, this is an A plus higher. Yep, I agree with you. I really think this is only going to make the drafts even better for the Penguins going forward now that Clark is there. They just have an extra voice to go off of outside of Nick Pryor, Andy Sosier, Kyle Dubus, Jason Spetser, etc. Yeah, very excited for this. I think it's going to do wonders for the organization.

But that'll do it for this first segment. When we come back, we're going to keep the discussion on Kyle Dubus and what we think and some others think he needs to do to keep the penguins competitive for the rest of Sidney Crosby's career. But before we do that, we're going to tell you about our first sponsor. And that is Bandul. I love sports and I love them so much that I never want them to stop. But as the playoffs wind down, we get. fewer games and the sports aren't sportsing like I want them to. But Fandul lets me keep the sports going whenever I want. All I have to do is open the app and dream up any bets anytime

I'm in the mood. In this summer, Fandul is hooking up all customers with a boost or bonus daily. That's right. There's something for everyone every day all summer long. So head over to fandul.com and start making the most of your summer. Fandul, the official sports betting partner of Major League Baseball. All right, we're back here on the Tuesday edition of the Locked On Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Patrick Damp, joined as always by Hunter Hodes. And I brought this up on our Monday episode. I talked about the Steve Dangle podcast segment where they kind of still had their sour grapes with Kyle Dubas. But on their most recent episode, they had on one of the best hockey reporters in the business, the athletics, Chris Johnston. He also has his own show with

their network, aptly titled The Chris Johnston show. Very good. show a lot of insider information there worth every second of your time of course after you finish listening to locked on penguins you've got to put us first right but anyway they continued the discussion now with the knowledge that sidney crosbie is likely to sign pretty soon here an extension with the penguins that will finish his career in pittsburg and there's one quote from johnston that stood out and that's they have to try to win they have to try to make some bold trades. And I agree with this to an extent. I think bold is the incorrect word to use. I think the better word to use here is creative. Because if you look at the Eric Carlson deal last

year, yes, you can say that's a bold trade because you go out and get Eric Carlson. But when you dig into the trade itself, it's a creative deal. Because again, you can have your misgivings, your anger, whatever with Eric Carlson's season this year, and it's totally fair. But when you look at the trade itself, they didn't give up anything of value. You look, you can lament not having the 13th overall pick in this past draft, but at the same time, that 13th overall pick was a going to make much of a difference in the rest of the careers of Sidney Crosby in all of his band of Mary men. So you look at the position that they're in. You know what they're trying to do. They're holding on to prospects. They're holding on to draft picks. They are going to try to restock this

system, but they still have needs. They still need at the very least a top six winger to help them out. They maybe need some more help on defense. And we don't really know what's going to happen in goal. it appears, I would say the betting odds are, it's going to be Tristan Jari and Alex Nadelcovic again. But in your mind, Hunter, what exactly does bold and or creative mean for Kyle Dubus at this moment? It's a good question. I can definitely tell you, though, that it doesn't mean that they're trading away futures. I mean, I said this on Twitter when I saw that quote from Chris Johnston. You want to make a bold trade. That's all fine and dandy. But they're not in a position right. now to be giving away futures when they've openly said that they're not in win now,

no, no. You're just not giving away futures in that situation. I would love very much for this score to get one last crack at the Stanley Cup playoffs. I think if they don't see the Stanley Cup playoffs again, I would definitely be really sad. But in order for that to happen, you are going to have to get bold. You are going to have to get creative. And maybe that player is someone who we've talked about before. Maybe that's someone like a Patrick Linae out of Columbus.

if you can swing that. I think that's a bold move, and it's also pretty creative if you can make the salary cap work. Maybe that's someone like Trevor Zegris, who we've talked about before out of Anaheim. I would say that's also bold and creative that also helps you now. And I think in the future with how young he is, I think he also has a lot more room to grow. Overall, we've done plenty of segments about Trevor Zegris as a trade candidate. If you want to go find that, you can go back a couple weeks. We did a full segment into it overall.

but maybe it's someone that you discussed before we started recording Pat, and that's Andre Kuzmanko out of the Calgary Flames. He has one year left, 5.5 million 28 years old. He does have a modified no trade clause, so you have to see if the Penguins are on that. He can play both winger positions this past season, 22 goals, 46 points. The biggest thing that scares me overall, in two seasons in the NHL, he has a 23% shooting percentage. I feel like that's going to have to come down at some point. I mean, he was great with Vancouver. as a rookie in 2022, 2022, 23, 39 goals, 74 points, and 81 games. But he also shot 27% for the Canucks that season.

He's probably not going to be that type of shooter on the Penguins, and we all know how many problems they've had finishing. Still, that's someone that could make sense if you can get maybe the flames to retain a little bit there. I just get a little nervous just because of how high his shooting percentage is overall. But we've seen with Craig Conroy as Flames G. I don't think he's done that well with trades. I think he could be had there with that.

That's just an option that I feel like we could throw out there as well overall. But it has to be a trade where you're not giving up too much in futures, but you're still bringing in help that can help this team potentially maybe try and, I guess, sneak their way in the playoffs, even though I don't think that's going to happen. But again, as you said, this team still has needs, especially at top six winger. I think you're going to get that need through trade rather than free agency. I mean, have you seen the free agent market right now? There's a very real argument that the best winger available right now is former penguin Daniel

Strong. It is very slim pickings right now on the free agent market. You want to be bold. You want to be creative. You want to go get that top six winger for Crosby. It's going to have to be via trade. Maybe it's one of the few options that I just discussed. Maybe it's someone else.

But again, to sum it all up has to be via trade. And you can't be giving up too many futures just because of what they've said their mandate is. No, you really can't. I'll push back on this, though, with Kuzmanko. He had his regression this season in Vancouver. He shot only 12%. But then he goes to a worst team in Calgary, and all of a sudden it shoots right back up to 24%.

So there's something there with with Kuzmanko, I think. More opportunity, I think for him in Calgary, just more of a place in the lineup. Obviously, he had a place in lineup in Vancouver, but I think more of a place in Calgary just because they weren't nearly as good. Vancouver, I thought like, was a really deep team throughout this season. Yeah, and I will say this too. Yeah, maybe he's not going to shoot 23, 24%.

But then you look at if he can, this could be a very good luxury to have in that if he is shooting at that high percentage, he can play in your top six. And that's great. If he regresses a little bit to say 12, 15, 16% and still can put up 15-ish goals, he can play in your bottom six. And that's another big need the penguins have right now. They have to find some kind of production within their bottom six. It can't be this defensive, doesn't score, play to even kind of group. They eventually have to start contributing if they really want to find their way back into the postseason, however they can. Another name I had in

mind that I brought up to you if they're willing to deal them because they have made a bunch of big money moves on July 1. And that's Oliver Bjork Strand out of Seattle. He had a very solid year this year, 82 games, 20 goals, 59 points. You look at his salary. It's a little bit on the higher end. It's 5.4 million, but you add in the fact that this is going to have to be a salary out, salary in kind of deal for both teams.

You could probably find a way to fit that in under the penguin's current salary cap structure. and then you go over his career goals. He's very consistent at scoring 20 or more goals. He's done it a handful of times. He's done it the last three seasons, got very close to 30 goals in 21, 22, with the blue jackets who were not very good.

But that to me is another example of a creative trade because they're not going to go swinging for the fences and get some big ticket name. They're going to have to get guys who are on the margins, because the teams are in salary cap trouble or have impending salary cap trouble. So those are the moves to me that Kyle Dubus is going to have to make. Right. And I would like Yorkshire. I mean, the last couple of seasons, 20 goals both times, and you said 21, 21, 2021, 22, 28 goals,

58 goals, 57 points and 80 games. The biggest thing, though, does Seattle want to move from? They've made a lot of very big win now moves this offseason, especially Chandler Stevenson signing that massive long-term deal when free agency opened. Also, Brandon Montor, Pat, he signed that big deal when free agency open. They are very much in win-namo. They want to get back to the playoffs next year. I'm not sure they want to subtract York Strand from that team.

But if they were to make him available, I think he's someone that I would definitely go after considering how consistent he's been. I will say, though, he's mainly a pure right-winger. So if you put him on Crosby's wing, you might be playing him on his upside just because Rust. He's mainly the guy on right-wing right now. They kind of need someone to play left-wing. York Strand, again, mainly a right winger. So he'd be playing on his offside overall if they were to acquire him there. Right.

And as I've said before, I think the biggest X factor there is that you have the ultimate Swiss Army knife in Brian Rust where he's not just a natural right winger. You can put him on the left. Yeah. He's pretty much as effective there as well just because he has really turned into a very versatile player that can pretty much play anywhere in your lineup and find. some kind of success. So I'm very interested to see what Dubus does over the next few weeks and the next couple of years because Johnston's right. I think he used the wrong word in bold,

but he definitely has to be creative because you're really trying to square two different circles here with rebuilding up your pipeline, but still remaining moderately competitive. Because as you've said, as I've said, they're not in go for it win now mode right now. They're in, hey, if we can get in, maybe we can make some noise, but we're not sitting here, putting together a contender. That's a year or two away right now. But that'll do it for this second segment. When we come back, Sidney Crosby, man, still an absolute legend. He made an unexpected appearance for another Canadian team.

And boy, oh, boy, was it a warm welcome. We'll talk about that right after this. Welcome back to the Tuesday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm Patrick Damp. That's Hunter Hodes. And man, I know you're a big soccer guy. I'm not much of one. I keep in touch with the big headlines, the big tournament.

So obviously, I have been paying attention to the Copa America tournament. But with Canada making some noise in that tournament, after they had a huge, huge win over Venezuela, which went to penalties. They got a special visitor in their locker room after that win, and it was Penguin's captain, Sidney Crosby. And if you go to the athletic from a couple of days ago, Joshua Clokey did a great story on this. And there are quotes in it that are just absolutely awesome.

And it shows you how much juice Sidney Crosby still has with one of the Canadian players saying, I got to see a Nova Scotia legend. I've always looked up to him and to meet him was unbelievable. This is a soccer tournament. This isn't the Canadian junior team who they're all like, oh, it's Sidney Crosby, one of the greatest Canadian players ever. This is Canadian soccer team.

And they were just like, oh my God, we just want one of the biggest games in Canadian soccer history, but there's Sidney Crosby. Yeah, he's very much Pittsburgh royalty. But, oh, yeah, you know he's Canadian royalty as well with everything he's accomplished. the Olympic golds, obviously the Golden Goal, the World Cup of hockey, et cetera, et cetera. He will always be Canadian royalty. And seeing him there was awesome.

And who knows, with how superstitious he is, is he going to be at MetLife Stadium on Tuesday to try and send Canada to the Copa America final? Because they play Argentina tonight at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. And again, we all know how superstitious Crosby is. I feel like he's got to go there. It's a very short flight from Pittsburgh to Newark. I know Crosby was skating before development camp on Tuesday, but you got to think he's going to be there for that next game, right?

Oh, he has to be. And like you said, it's all the superstition. You know in his mind right now, he's thinking, oh my God, if I don't go to this game in New Jersey and Canada loses, it's all my fault. If I don't show up and they lose, it's totally on my shoulders. But then there was another quote from Marsh that was just absolutely incredible. in that story. What a legend to have on our side. This is important for us in 2026 at the World

Cup with Canada hosting along with the U.S. and Mexico. We want to feel the power of the entire nation. I know that Sidney Crosby has done it all in the hockey world. He is a living legend. He is a first ballot hall of famer, probably one of the top 10 best players of all time. But the fact that of soccer Canada player says about Sidney Crosby, we want to feel the power of the entire nation. This dude has so much juice in Canada. It's never ending. He'll be there for all of the World Cup games in less than two years at this point. It's going to be a lot of fun.

And, you know, congrats to Canada for getting the Copa America semifinals. I don't think really anyone expected them to get that far. Just when you look at Conca Calf in general, it's mainly been the United States. I feel like as number one, at least during this generation, then you know, you have Canada, Mexico, Panama, but the U.S. got grouped somehow just because they're just a very, they're very talented, but I feel like they're a very mentally fragile team a little bit. And for the love of God, if anyone from the U.S. Soccer Federation is somehow listening to this episode,

please sack Greg Burrhalter already. I don't want to have to watch him lead this team into the 2026 World Cup. And if you fire him, go throw a bag at Yurken Klopp. Just do it, please. I'm begging you, yes. I know that is a dream scenario overall for U.S. soccer, and I turn this into a U.S. soccer rant outside of Sidney, Crosby, and Canada. But please, go fire Greg Verhalter and throw a bag at Yerken Klopp, if you can.

But just getting back to Crosby in Canada, it was awesome seeing him there. And, you know, I wish Canada a lot going up against Lionel Messi in Argentina on Tuesday. A really good day of soccer here. If we have any soccer fans that listen to this podcast, you got that game, and you have France, Spain, Euro semifinals. That's going to be awesome to watch later this afternoon. Yeah, it's going to be a ton of fun. And man, North American sports,

we really need to embrace a lot of things from soccer, especially calling firing someone sacking. You really need to bring that to North America. I want to hear about coaches and managers and front office people getting sacked. Fired doesn't have the same juice as sacked. So hopefully we can. can bring that one over, do our little part here with our podcast, start bringing that,

that vernacular to the North American sports world. But that will do it for the Tuesday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. For Hunter Hodes, I am Patrick Damp. Thank you, as always, for tuning in. Hunter and I will return on Wednesday with a brand new episode. Until then, thank you, as always for tuning in. And that'll do it for the Tuesday edition.