Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Should The Penguins make a run at Tomas Tatar?

Episode Date: July 12, 2021

Lots have happened across the NHL the last few days and Hunter is here to break it all down! He first starts with the Duncan Keith trade and how the Edmonton Oilers are continuing to not know how to build around Connor McDavid. How long will it be till he asks out? What other weird moves could be coming? He also touches on the Pierre McGuire hire from the Ottawa Senators and how this is sure to go badly. Will he actually embrace analytics? Could he take over for Dorion, who has one year left on his contract? Finally, Hunter touches on a free agent target for the Penguins, another from the Montreal Canadiens.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. We're welcome to this Monday afternoon episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hoodies. I'm not to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the shows Twitter at L.O. underscore Penguins.

No, I am not at the beach anymore. I am officially back home where I live in Northern Virginia, so no one can hear the ocean for a Monday episode like I did last Monday. But we do have a lot to touch on for this episode of the podcast. A lot has happened around the league since the Lightning won their back-to-back Stanley Cups. I had an episode with Adam Denker on Friday. If you do not listen to it, you can go check it out. That is the last episode that I posted.

But there's been some moves around the league. Pierre McGuire somehow got a job within an NHL team. We're going to touch on that today. And, you know, of course, he had some really. Odd quotes to go with it because he's an odd person. And then we also had finally the Duncan Keith trade with the Edmonton Oilers and the Chicago Blackhawks. I'm probably going to make fun of the Oilers a bit like I always do. But we'll also have some Penguins talk because I'm going to touch on a free agent target that I think they should go after.

Even though I've touched on that player a lot on the podcast these last couple weeks because, of course, you know, the Montreal Canadians were in the Stanley Cup final. So that kind of gives it away. No, it is not Yuel or Mia. It's another player who was scratched for basically the entire. Stanley Cup playoffs. So that basically should give it away right there for you all. But, you know, starting with this trade. Selly season is here, folks. I touched on this on what, Friday, whatever, last my last episode. Maybe it was either Friday or the one before that. But, you know, you're going to see a lot of weird silly season trades. We are getting that right now. Duncan Keith is

going to the Edmonton Oilers for Caleb Jones, who is Seth Jones's brother. Remember everyone, the Blackhawks want to go after Seth Jones. He's one of their defensemen that they want. They want to get an upgrade on D. Caleb Jones is his brother. And with Seth Jones, not really wanting to agree to a long-term extension right now, I think that could be a big kicker to potentially him changing his mind. And they also get a third-round pick-in-return, no salary retained.

This trade is hilarious in so many ways. If you look at Jay Fresh's model, Keith ranks, he's in the one-percentile and wins above replacement. Even strength defense 3%, power play 20%, PK ability 4%tile and the finishing 29%. His primary assist per 60, 37%, his goal is per 60, 37%. This player is just wash now. I mean, it was a little bit better, maybe even a couple years ago, but it has sank so badly.

He's 38 years old. He gets $5.5 million for the next two years. I really don't understand what the hell the Edmonton orders are doing here. And as he tweeted out, you know, Connor McDavid needs to just ask out already. I mean, this is just, this is insanity, I think, from Ken Holland. You know, he really has one of the easiest jobs, I think, in the league. You're building around two of the top 10 best players in the game, one of them, the best player in the world.

You know, in case anyone has not listened to my podcast before, I do think Connor McDavid is the best player in the world, and rightfully so you saw what he did this year. And, you know, for some reason, Sean Simpson had this weird, tweet, you know, I'm curious how people who have never worked in the industry can tell you who isn't and who isn't qualified to manage NHL teams. I mean, I guess we're just going to be gatekeeping here. But as Adam Gregg says, if you can't build a competitive team around those two who I just mentioned, you are probably not qualified to run a hockey team. I mean, that's

just, that that's where it is. I mean, the Oilers had so many better options than going after Duncan Keith. And who knows, you know, maybe Keith has a Renaissance kind of season. Very doubtful, but he could have, but, you know, this just screams like a Peter Shirelli trade in my opinion.

It's a desperation move because they got swept by the Winnipeg Jets so they're just going to go out and do something dire, so basically a hashtag here come the Oilers kind of snuffoo,

but you know, Matt Dumbah is available with Minnesota, Dougie Hamilton's not going back to Carolina, Seth Jones, you can have, and he's better than Duncan Keith.

I mean, I wouldn't give up a lot of assets for him, but he's still a much better player than Duncan Keith. You have really good options out there and you're deciding to go with Duncan Keith who just is not good anymore. I mean, you're not even addressing your biggest need going into next season, which, you know, is more forward depth. I mean, they have McDavid and Drysinal. Okay, Ryan Newgen Hopkins is not bad.

It actually a pretty decent contract. Who else besides that do you have? Kaila Yaiyoto? I mean, okay, he's not terrible, but who else that is good in your top six? Is that Cassian? I mean, also, I will say this. I've seen some weird rumors these last couple of days. about a Zach Cassian for Tristan Jari swap. I think that was basically brought up by Edmonton Oiler fans and not media. Let me just say this. I'm going to swash this real quick. That is not going to happen.

I will legit eat a hat if Ron Hextall traded Tristan Jari for Zach Cassian. That would probably be one of these stupidest trades in NHL history. I mean, I know Cassian, it fits kind of what they're looking for. They want to get bigger. They want to get tougher. He's 6.3, 214 pounds. but he also had five points in 27 games this past year. Sure, he's had 15 goals each of the last couple seasons,

but this is also a player who's 30 years old. You know what you're going to get with him at this point. And 552 career games, he has 182 points. It's not even half a point per game. And if you just look at it also his underlying numbers, was only on the ice for 46.7% of the shot attempts when he was with the Oilers this year. Last year, it was 48.8.

He's never, he hasn't been above 50% since 2014-15 when he's, he was with the Canucks. Overall with Edmonton in six years, his possession numbers are around 46.2%. He usually gets caved in each time he's on the ice. I would not expect him to score even close to 15 goals with the penguin. So I'm going to squash that right there. And also it would make, it kind of makes sense maybe to trade Jari to Edmonton because they want to have a change in goal. But, you know, to trade Jari for casking me, that's just a fireball offense right there.

That's just, like I said, that is not going to happen. But getting back to my original point about the Keith trade, I just, I just really don't understand the thought process from Ken Holland here. Like I said, the guy is 38 years old. He signed for over $5 million per for the next two seasons. He's not been good since 2016, 2017, somewhere along those lines. It's just, like I said, it reeks of a hashtag, here come the Oilers. And I can't wait to see what else they do.

They're just probably going to continue making all the wrong moves. I'm going to be here for it. But it's just, and it's one thing, you know, to trade for Duncan Keith. it's a whole other thing to trade a third round pick for him and not even get the Blackhawks to retain any salary on his contract. That makes no sense to me. And it just goes to show that a lot of these hockey general managers don't know what the hell they're doing.

I mean, I've been saying this since day one on the podcast. You know, the 200 hockey men, they love helping each other out. You know, they don't, Ken Holland didn't even want his good buddy, Stan Bowman, to retain any salary. that should show you right there that they don't give a damn about screwing their friends over basically. They just do not care at all.

I wish it was different where GMs could kind of try and screw the other GM over, you know, like the Shea Weber offer sheet that we saw almost a decade ago. I mean, remember the offer sheet that we had with Sebastian Aho was just so puny. It was just unbelievable. I think the general manager at the time,

I think Don Waddle literally came out and said, yeah, I mean, we're just, we're going to match this right away. This was a really, he basically, I think, said, I thought this would be for a lot more. So that basically just sums it up right there on how you know all these 200, all the hockeymen don't want to piss off the other hockeymen. It's just, it's the old boys club. It's never going to go away. You know, we're going to touch a little bit more on the old boys club coming up in the next segment where I talk about up here, McGuire and how the hell he landed a job with the Ottawa Senators. But still, this was another

silly season trade. Again, it's really going to be funny to see what else Edmonton does this offseason. They still have to find the answer in goalie. Maybe they'll bring Mike Smith back, who actually had a pretty decent season, but I wouldn't expect him to play like that again next year. And, you know, who else? Who knows? Maybe they'll do something else weird on defense. But Ken Holland has never been a good general manager, even going back to his days with the Red Wings, and he was hand-gifted, Datsuk and Zetterberg and Lidstrom and all their other great players. So he also signed, I think, Justin Abdel Cater to a horrific contract.

Darren Helm had a huge term contract. So he's just never really been good at his job, I don't think. sums up my thoughts on the Dunkin-Keeth trade to the Edmonton Oilers. It's just, like I said, probably for the 100-time, it is going to be really fascinating to see what else they do this off-season is. You know, I think we're getting close to Connor McDavid asking out at this point. But before we do get to the next segment, it's time to talk about Bilt Bar. Case you missed it, we did have that Bilt Grasshopper cookie.

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The show's Twitter at L.O underscore Penguins. So this whole Pierre-Maguire topic is probably going to be, I'm not, really sure how I'm going to frame it. I'm just really going to go into it as I always do. Maybe it'll be a bit of a rant about anti-analytics. You know, I'm just, I'm going to, honestly, let's just go see where the wind goes with this. So in case anyone was living under a rock, you know, personally, I woke up to the greatest news of all time this morning, probably around 8 o'clock getting ready for work stuff, where I see the news from Bruce Garriach of the Ottawa sign that the senators are going to be reportedly hiring Pierre McGuire for

vice president of player development. It was later confirmed, I think about 10 minutes later, from the team. And of course, all the funny takes come in, and they were something. Let's just say that. And, you know, McGuire had a full answer when asked how he would respond to people who say he hates analytics. And he said this, it's not that I hate analytics, but I believe in scouting. I believe that there has to be people that are boots on the ground, hardcore hockey people that can actually evaluate a player without utilizing numbers and the player passes the eye test. Okay, I'm going to stop here right there, or I'm going to stop just reading that answer right there. excuse me. There is nothing wrong with having boots on the ground, scouting people,

you know, the hardcore hockey people, as he likes to say it, that can evaluate a player without utilizing numbers. There's nothing wrong with that. But in 2021, with the modern game and where this game is going, if you are not using some form of underlying numbers or analytics when you analyze the game of hockey, you are a dinosaur and you are falling behind. I don't know how much more clear I can be with that. And I think Pierre, just doesn't understand the numbers. You know, he talks about how much he hates it. And, you know, well, he says he doesn't hate it.

But I think the biggest thing, you know, especially when he's embarrassed himself on TV, is that he just doesn't understand them. I think that's what really throws him off. And he thinks that the only way to build a team and the only way to, you know, make personnel moves is to just have the hardcore hockey people, the scouts, evaluating player without utilizing numbers.

He even says, I don't know if there's an analytic equation for heart, for character, for hard work, for fearlessness, for determination. So that's part of the formula. That hardcore boots on the ground scouting has to be. I mean, it's just, he's just sounding stupid with these. I mean, this is why so many people get annoyed with these overrated intangibles. I mean, sure, you know, you maybe need a little bit of heart, a little bit of character, a little bit of hard work. But it's almost like there is a metric that measures, you know, you know, determined going to the front of the net, you know, the high danger areas, the fearlessness, you know, that's what a player is doing when they are going to the high danger areas of the ice,

especially in front of the net, and they're getting results. I mean, Patrick Hornquist, that is basically that kind of player that Pierre McGuire is explaining in that answer right now. It's Patrick Hornclos, and oh yeah, wouldn't you know, he had really good underlying numbers this season in Florida and before that with Pittsburgh. You know, the same was probably true with Brendan Gallagher. He's fearless. He's determined. He works hard. He's like the heartbeat of Montreal has a lot of heart.

And oh, yeah, he can also go to the front of the. the net to the high danger areas and get a lot of goals. So, and oh yeah, you can measure that stat by looking at, you know, high danger chances for, high danger chances against. I mean, I just don't think he understands that. He says, I don't hate analytics. I think it's a tool that can be utilized in any kind of evaluation about, but I'm a big believer in boots on the ground scouting. But it's just, it's an unwillingness, I think, to adapt to where the modern game is going. I mean, I think that's really the biggest thing here. And as Greg Wajinsky said, says, you know, he 100% considers hard to be related to players who go into the tough areas

of the ice, you know, where areas where there's a high amount of danger, you know, only if we could quantify that, yeah, hint, like I just said, with high danger chances. And even Jayfresh says, who, you know, if you're not subscribed to his stuff on EPR, EPR, E.P. Ringside, excuse me, he just, he does outstanding work. He even says there's nothing wrong with scouting. Nobody thinks there shouldn't be scouts. We're drafting a player with five points in 70-70 games because he showed fearlessness or whatever is, I think the issue. people have with overvaluing intangibles and he's 100% right you don't just draft someone with you know really shitty stats just because they show heart they show character they show

this other stuff blah blah blah blah blah I mean you actually have to produce you have to look at the numbers as well in order to be drafted and I just don't think pierre McGuire is going to do that in his spot with Ottawa excuse me and you know and and and again you know even as someone else on Twitter said, you know, that that would be an okay answer had Pierre not spent the last several years yelling, you know, where that analytic equation for that is every time he saw something that he liked and then just blamed people using analytics or something like that. It just, it really doesn't make sense to me. And then he also mentioned that he was offered an NHL position. The contractor offered was only for two years. At the time, there was seven years remaining on his NBC

deal. In case anyone was not aware that, yes, he confirmed that he was offered the GM job for Pittsburgh Penguins by Lemieux in Berkow and Morehouse. He declined it because it was only a two-year offer. Remember everyone, Rayshiro was fired in 2014, right after the Penguins would that three-to-one series lead to the New York Rangers. And the three finalists were McGuire, Jim Rutherford, and Julian Briswaw. You know, imagine if they had Brisball. I would really be curious to see what would have happened. But, you know, I can actually say now, thank Christ that Pierre McGuire was not hired to be the GM job over Jim Rutherford. And I didn't really like it. I didn't really like the way Jim Brotherford's tenure ended. I don't think anyone did. I did not like, you know,

those last three years, but, you know, he probably built a much better team than Pierre P.m. P.m. McGuire would have, especially during 2016, 2017. The Penguins probably do not win those two Stanley Cups that year, those two years if P.m. But it's just, you know, and again, I also think that Greg Wiginski of ESPN also had a great take earlier today. And I actually agree with him. I was thinking about this, before he said it. And I was actually glad that he did say it. And, you know, this is the power that something like television has.

Because you have all these qualified people probably for this role. You know, I'm sure, you know, they probably receive hundreds of applications that they put that on a job site or glass door, you know, something else. But again, this is the power that TV has. And the fact that, you know, all these other people qualify, but they're not getting it because someone can basically just scream inside the glass. talk about, you know, where this player was from and where he played his junior hockey and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, again, like that's, that matters to a lot of people, you know, as Greg says, they weren't on a glass box telling you that Jeff Petrie got his start in Des Moines under Reggie Smith in 2005. And I also agree with this here. I think Pierre definitely should not have been doing games for NBC. I think in a perfect world he probably should have been doing, well, in a perfect world, I should stress that.

A perfect world, he probably should not have been employed by any TV network, but in a better world, he should have been in the studio where you're only seeing him 15 minutes after every period. So only 45 minutes out of, what, a two and a half hour broadcast? I think that would have been a lot better, but I am kind of tired of Pierre just always going against analytics. I can't wait, though, to see what he does with the Ottawa Senators in this role. I'm just, I'm expecting them to make a whole lot of bad,

decisions, especially now that Pierre is there. I cannot wait to see it. It's probably going to be something I won't even be able to explain in words. So thank you to Pierre McGuire for really just making my Monday morning or my start to my day just a whole lot better than I thought it would be. Or I really should thank the Ottawa senators. I don't know why I'm thinking Pierre McGuire, but I did want to go over some of those quotes and touch on, you know how, like I say, if you're not using analytics to make decisions when it comes to player personnel, drafting, etc, et cetera, you're just,

you're being left in the mud. This is where the modern NHL game is going. Adapt or die, as I've always said on this podcast, the Moneyball. You know, you can,

it's your choice, you know, sink or swim, I think, at this point. There was one other thing that happened today in Penguinsland before I get to the free agent target

that I have in mind. Penguins did make some front office hires. Will Acton and Kerry Huffman as pro scouts. Brett Hextall is Ryan Hextall's son.

He's an integrated development coach. and Alexander Ka, I hope I can really pronounce this name. Kavanaugh, I think is how you pronounce it, European Amateur Scout, and Matt Manjini as an amateur free agent scout. Congratulations to all of those who are joining the Penguins Foreign Office. Definitely aware that Ron just brings his son over for a job. I don't know if someone else could have been a better third for that,

but also we are probably still waiting to find out who is going to take Sam Ventura's place after he left for the Buffalo Sabres. But I wanted to point out those hires for you all. And in case anyone did not know where some of these people worked, if I can just find this real quickly. Kerry Huffman was the former Phantoms assistant coach in Lehigh Valley for the Flyers' H.L team. And also Brett Hextall, he was remained in Philadelphia

as a player development coach, even after Hextall, his dad, of course, was fired out of Philadelphia. So I did want to touch on that. There was a little bit of a Philly connection there for a couple of those hires. But, okay, before we do get to our free agent target to end this episode, it's time to talk about Bet Online, the fastest and easiest way to

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up local bonus on your first deposit. That's been online, your online sportsbook experts with the promo code locked on. I welcome back to this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. I'm not to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the show's Twitter at L.O underscore Penguins. So let's get into it.

Here's a free agent target that I think this team should go after. I basically gave it away with how I was talking about him with Montreal. Yes, everyone, the Pittsburgh Penguins should make a run at Tomas Tatar. I've been thinking about it, you know, ever since I kind of finished up my vacation, it makes all the sense in the world, I think, for this team. I mean, you look at it as even-strength offense for this season, plus 0.42 expected goals for per 60. It's basically plus 16% if you look at hockey viz with Micah's stuff,

a whole blob of red in front of the net. Again, in case you all have never listened to this podcast was for, the more red you are in front of the net, you know, it just means you're creating more chances in those areas. The more blue you are in front of the net, surrounding areas in the offensive zone, the less chances you are creating for yourself. If you look at just his 2020, 2020, 2021 isolated impact,

again, plus 16.5% expected goals for. Last season, it was plus 16.6. Even defensively, he was better this year at minus 3.9% expected goals for. He was just, he was so good for Montreal. And honestly, it was just, it was a crime that he was not in the lineup, basically at all for the Stanley Cup playoffs. I just seem to go find his numbers here for just his full underlying numbers, excuse me, just for the regular season.

Let me just find this here real quick. Okay, so if you go to natural statrick, you go look at 5V5. He was on the ice for nearly 60% of the shot attempts. As for goals for, goals for, 53.7% of the actual goals for. The expected goals, 58.8%. Last year it was 60.2. 59.9% of the scoring chances for, 59.2% of the high danger chances for 131.90 against. And then for actual high danger goals for, 14 goals against.

I mean, he was just a menace this year for the Canadians. If you just look at his counting stats real quick, let me just load those up here for you all. He had another really, really good season. 10 goals, 30 points in 50 games, over a half a point per game. Last year for the Canadians, 61 points in 68 games, the year before that in Montreal, 58 points in 80 games. This is a perfect opportunity for the Penguins to sign him to a bargain kind of contract because I really don't think he's going to be looking for a whole lot.

Just because he didn't get a lot of playing time down the stretch and, of course, into the playoffs, he's going to be looking to reestablish some value. I would not be surprised, honestly, if he takes a 1 to 2. year deal gets his value back up maybe is over a half point per game player again and then really cashes out next year as he's going to be 31 during this season and then going into next year he'll be 32 so I mean he players you know especially GMs they will overpay for players like this even though they'll be 31 32 years old this is I think a gamble that the penguin should make I think it makes a lot of sense and sure you know he's a left wing but again I think they're

going to be losing a left winger in the expansion draft, you know, hint, hint to Zach Garson Reese and makes a lot of sense to plug in a hole there with a potential, even though it's going to be a limited amount of cap space. If Pittsburgh does create some cap space, I think that this will be a perfect free agent signing for the Penguins. They could still move out Marcus Pedersen. Maybe you move out a goalie. Maybe you try to find someone to take on Mike Matheson. You can find someone to take away Jason Zulcher if he's not taking an expansion draft. There's a whole lot of ways for this team to create some really good salary cap space this season. It's a matter of will Ron Hextall do it and does he actually want to do it?

I think that's what it's going to come down to. Tatar makes all the sense for so many reasons. Like I said, he's probably not going to want a lot. I mean, he wants to reestablish his value. I don't think it's going to be as cheap as a Cody C.C. kind of deal here where it's one year, $1.25 million or something like that. You're going to have to pay a bit more to get someone like to tar. but I could see maybe a two-year deal,

$3 million per, a one year, three to three and a half million per deal, and I would do that in a heartbeat for a player of Tomas Tatar's capability, and I think I could finally spam Tatar sauce on my Tatar tots if he does sign with the Penguins as Red Wings fans used to do. But that'll do it for this episode of the Locked-on of Penguins podcast.

I really appreciate everyone of you listening to this. I have a couple things potentially planned for later this week when it comes to the podcast. Remember everyone, expansion draft protection lists are due this Saturday. We're going to be laughing at a lot of teams, I think, when the lists come out publicly.

The actual expansion draft is next Wednesday, the 21st on ESPN. We are getting really close to some really fun times in the initial offseason. Hopefully we'll get some really big penguin news here in the next week to a week and a half. Keep it right here on Locked on Penguins. I'll have everything for your all,

especially when it breaks and then some. So appreciate it, and we'll do another one of these tomorrow.