Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins deal second-rounder for Preds' Mikael Granlund. But why? | Quick Trade Reaction

Episode Date: March 2, 2023

The Pittsburgh Penguins have baffled fans and neutral onlookers alike by trading for Nashville Predators forward Mikael Granlund in exchange for a second-round pick. Hunter Hodies of Locked On Penguins joins Gil Martin of Locked On NHL to break down the trade from the Penguins perspective, and detail why this was not at all the type of move the struggling Penguins needed to bolster their playoff push. What did you think of the trade? 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.

The locked on road to the NHL trade deadline continues. The Pittsburgh Penguins make two moves on March 1st. First they send forward Teddy Bluger to the Vegas Golden Knights in exchange for defensemen Peter Dilabatour and a third round pick in the 2024 NHL draft. And then they acquire McHale Granland from the Nashville Predators for a second round pick in 23. We're joined by Hunter Hodes of Locked-on Penguins. And Hunter, your thoughts on these two deals, the bigger one, I guess, being the Granlan deal. Yeah. So, you know, right when I saw that Bluger was getting moved, I'm like, okay, they're setting something up. They're opening up some

cap space. Then you send down Brock McGinn and Mark Freeman because they cleared waivers. Now you have $6.3 million in cash face. You have the opportunity to go out there and add a, not a good player, an impact player, because this team usually does not have that much cap space going into the Detroit Deadline or at all during the Sydney Cross Bay of Guinea-Malkan era. And Elliott Freeman even tweeted out, their clearing room like, yep, people were saying, this is Brock Besser, it's J.T. Miller, it could be someone else. It was someone else. It was just a player that I don't think many of us expected, Mikhail Granlin for a second round pick.

And it's just like, that's not the move. that Ron Hextall needed to make. I'm sorry. This guy is on the wrong side of 30. He makes $5 million per year for the next two seasons after this one. That's who you're going after at the trade billy line. I just really question the player evaluations that he has with his staff there. If you look at Jay Fresh's chart, he does great work for the analytics community.

I mean, this player ranks in the third percentile for Winsbaugh, placement, eighth percentile for even strength offense, second percentile for even strike defense, 13th percentile for goals per 60 minutes. The only really good thing he does is his passing ability. But that's just the opposite of what they need. They need finishers for their bottom six. And he is not that. No.

Brock McGinnon, who is down in the minor leagues now, he has more goals than McHale Granland does this year. And they just tried to waive him. I'm sorry. I don't know what the plan is for this general manager. I don't really think he's ever had a plan. And I've been a part of this community for a long time. I've seen a lot of stuff.

I don't think I've seen Penguins fans this against a move outside of when they signed Jack Johnson and just took about five years ago. Wow. What does Gremlin add to the lineup and where will he fit in in the bottom six? You know, obviously, again, you know, his passing metrics are very good. He's elite at that. His skating is good. Those are two quality traits that he has. Outside of that, his defending is piss poor.

Jesse Marshall is sending me a couple of videos overtax before posting them on Twitter, showing me like how bad his defense has been this season. So I don't think you're going to get anything from him there. He's probably going to slot in on the third line. I know he's had good numbers with Jason Zucker when they were in. Minnesota from 2017 to 2019, all those years ago. But I don't think he's going to be playing on a line with Eddie Malkin and Jason's so Graham don't think they want to move Brian Russ down.

He's been playing a bit better as of late. But, you know, I think what they're probably going to do is put Granland with Carter, maybe Danton Hinen moved Drew O'Connor down to the fourth line. It's just now when you look at the third line, okay, two-thirds of your McGinn-Carter-Camping line are not there anymore. but is your third line really that much better? You have Jeff Carter on there who really hasn't done much this season. You have Granlin who only has nine goals. I understand he has close to 40 points.

I think it's 36 right now, if I recall correctly, but most of those are assists. So that's a good part of this game. But again, there's just not really much else there. So that's where I see him slotting in right now. I don't think he's going to play center. This move screams that they're honestly going to keep. keep Carter at center, which is even more crazy because he has not been good at the center

position this season. They'd be better off moving him to wing, but that's what I have right now. I almost hate to ask you this question, but do you see any other moves between now and Friday at 3 o'clock Eastern time? And if so, what are the penguins trying to do or are they trying to do anything? It's a great question, Gil. Right now, probably not. I think they only have a million, if that in salary cap stays, they would have to get creative. I've seen all the rumors about Brock Besser and J.T. Miller. I don't think that's going to happen at this time unless they move significant salary out like Marcus Pedersen. Now, if they move Marcus Patterson, I think people are going to be going to egg this

poor guy's house because he's been awesome this season. But I really don't see them adding anything else. He's been saying for a while that, you know, if we're going to add someone that's going to be someone with term, if we want to give up a big asset, it's going to be someone. and that can help us this year and next year. It looks like he has accomplished that. Right now, I don't see them doing anything else. You know, I could be wrong, but, you know, I think, Gil, I don't think anyone else wants to see.

I don't think anyone wants to see him do anything else right now. That's for sure. At first, do no harm, right? I mean, all right, well, be sure to check out Locked-on Penguins for more on these two deals and all things Pittsburgh, and keep it dialed into Locked-on NHL all along the road to the NHL trade deadline. I'm Gilmartin. This is the Locked-on podcast network, your team every day.