Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Stay away from Dale Tallon!

Episode Date: October 28, 2020

Now we're doing Dale Tallon rumors? Rob Rossi of The Athletic reported on Tuesday that the Penguins are interested in bringing Tallon into their front office alongside Jim Rutherford and Hunter explains why that's just an awful idea. He's not a good general manager (never was to begin with) and he's also being investigated by the NHL for using a racial slur inside the bubble. Hunter also explains that with the hiring of Trevor Daley, it would just be a slap to the face with it. After that, Hunter gets into the AHL's announcement of starting their season February 5th. Is the NHL likely to fall suit as January 1st doesn't look likely? How many games will the schedule likely be? Finally, Hunter talks about some free agents that still haven't signed. Is there a fit on the team for Mikael Granlund? Does Erik Haula makes some sense? All that, plus much more on this latest episode.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON,” and you’ll get 20% off your next order.BuiltGoVisit BuiltGO.com and use promo code “LOCKED,” and you’ll get 20% off your next order. 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 everyone. Welcome to this Wednesday episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the show's Twitter at L-O-1-1-Square. Today's episode of this podcast is brought to you by BillPard. You can go to Bilpar.com and use promo code locked on. You'll get $20 off your next door. And next time I say $20.00 is just I'm just going to stop doing this podcast. But in any case, welcome back. I'm sorry didn't I have an episode. yesterday. We want to take some time and, you know, digest some of these Dale Talon thoughts that we got yesterday. So, in case you guys do not see, case you guys do not have a subscription to the athletic, well, before we honestly get into that, today's show, we're going into an article written by Rob Rossi on the athletic, basically just talking about Carmen Nuss aspiring and what's next for Jim Rutherford's from office as he is basically shaking things up with that. You know, we're going to talk about, you know, who their potential going to hire, why that would be a bad idea, especially with what's going on.

we'll talk about a potential start date for the HL looks like according to Elliot Friedman that's going to be after the NHL's planned one though I think the NHL's one is I think it's going to be pushed back so we'll get into that as well and we have a couple other goodies coming for you for this episode but you know we'll just start with

the article from Rob Rossi you know woke up at around 830 yesterday saw the I think Jason J underscore A155 on Twitter please go follow him if you have not he is one of the best follows on Penguin's Twitter basically put a screenshot of what potentially is next for Jim Rutherford in the article. I'm just going to go to it right here. Dale Tallin has emerged as a candidate to join the Penguins in some capacity,

multiple team and league sources said. A former GM was Chicago and Florida. More recently, Talon was the primary architect of Blackhawks' 2010 Cup Club? Was he the primary architect or or without Stan Bowman? I honestly might give that to Stan Bowman, though he had been demoted from GM to his senior advisor about a year before Chicago's title run. So again, I'd give it to Stan Bowman because he actually built that team. Talon is only 16 months younger than Rutherford. Oh, God, God willing. In addition to being longtime friends and peers,

Talon and Rutherford shared ties to the Penguins' former players. Another factor working in Talon's favor for a potential role with the Penguins is his good standing with Mario Lemieux, a team in Leaksors said. He has a couple big relationships in Pittsburgh, a league source said. So let's just, let's talk about Dale Tallon, the hockey general manager. Then we'll get into his investigation coming up here in a second. Dale Tallon is not a good general manager.

I mean, remember the quote with Mike MacMathson. Oh, yeah, we went to two years and then went up to four years and then went up to six years. And when we said eight, he's like, yeah, I'll do it. So they literally just gave Mike Matheson eight years for reasons. I mean, Florida, they went back from the old boy hockey's club to a bunch of guys. Static guys who were actually running the team pretty decently. Then they went back to DLTal and then they just shot all over themselves. Especially, you know, with that Sergei-Borovsi contract, that's going to be one of the worst contracts in the league pretty soon.

He is never going to live up to that deal. they paid a lot of money, I think, as well, to Brett Connelly. I mean, I know I'm forgetting a couple others, but I mean, they went on a big spending spree. And I know Joel Quenbo is a really good coach, but DeLowne, just a lot of his trades are just so lopside. I mean, he traded Vincent Trochevich for basically peanuts. I mean, this was the guy that protected Alex Petrovich in the expansion drive. Is Alex Petrovich even still in the NHL? I honestly have no idea at this point.

He protected him in the Expans and Draft. and then they let Riley Smith and Jonathan Marchesaw get away. I mean, that's just flat out embarrassing on any level. He does have no idea what he's doing. So I have no idea why Jim Rutherford wants to bring him in. I mean, like I said, they want to do the old boys club, or maybe just have both of them go to a nursing home or something. I have no idea, but that would just be a awful move if Jim Rutherford were to do that.

So, I mean, let's just get, you know, to the elephant in the room. He's being investigated for using a racial slur inside the bubble. So honestly, that alone should not have the Penguins hire him. I mean, the Penguins, they released a tweet out yesterday. It was the two-year anniversary of the Tree of Life synagogue shooting from 2018. They did the hashtag, stronger than hate. And if you're going to promote that hashtag on Twitter, you know, promote the stronger than hate, why in God's name would you hire Dale Tallon?

And yes, you know, I know, being Jewish is not a race. You know, if you're against Jews, it's anti-Semitism. But, you know, it's still a message of hate if you're using a slur against, you know, people of color or people of a certain religion. So I just, I really don't understand why could you hire Dale Talon who's under investigation by the league for using a racial slur? And he just flat out, not good at his job for hockey. So, I mean, that's just a hard pass on many levels.

I understand Jim wants to get rid of some people in the front office. I mean, this Jason Carmano's thing seems pretty fishy if you guys listen to the episode on Monday with me and Tyler, you know, Jeff Latang called on Twitter had a pretty interesting theory that, you know, we could be pivoting to a full analytic staff, that this could have come from ownership to do it because, you know, Mike Defabo of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette said, yeah, he didn't say that, but he asked Jim Rutherford, hey, Jim, like, what was the reasoning behind, you know, Carmino's aspiring? And Jim's like, I'm not really going to get into it.

So something just seems fishy about it. I don't know if he was forced out by ownership. I don't know if Jim wanted to fire him just to bring in Dale Tallinn for reasons beyond my comprehension. I don't know. Something just smells really. odd about it. Oh yeah, here's something to consider too. Why would you hire him when you just hired Trevor Daly, who is a person of color and also made it clear in one of his answers in his

press conference that, you know, working in an in-Chel from office as a person of color just means the world to him, and he's just so excited to do it. So that's the third reason why this just makes absolutely no sense to do. Please stay away from him. I hope honestly downtown does not get a job in the NHL hyper again. I mean, it's not that he sucks at. Talent evaluating you know, roster management trades, you know, he's a shitty human being. So please stay away from him, Jim. That just does not need to happen. There's a couple other highlights in this article from Rob.

He said they same could be said of Jason Botrell. However, one league source said there is no there of the reunion between Barron of the Penguins, even though many in the National Community speculated that Cremanos is firing was tied to hiring Bottle. I mean, hey, I thought it was tied to hiring Jason Botryl. I 100% thought when I saw that announcement like, oh, they're just going to hire Jason Botryl, they're going to keep Sam Ventura maybe an assistant GM role, and they're just going to, you know, they'll have Botter will do his thing before, you know, he's managed the cap and maybe had Jim Rutherford not make as many mistakes. I think that would make a lot of sense. I would still be for them hiring Jason Bottero, but I guess it's

potentially not to be in. I mean, yeah, you're really going to demote San Ventura from assistant GM and hire Dale talent. Again, so that's basically four things right there of why this is just not a good idea at all. I mean, if you want to make it the old boys club, just send both of these guys to a retirement home, but, you know, I'm just, I'm kind of over, Jim Rutherford. I don't really think he's going to be here that long. I think I did see a great tweet yesterday from Mad Chad 412. He's been on this podcast before a few times. And please go listen to 412 Sports Talk with him and, oh, crap, I'm forgetting his name.

Oh, Eddie. They just do a hell of a job on that podcast. I mean, they had the mayor of Pittsburgh on, for God's sakes. That listen was just incredible. They've had Josh on. They've had Jesse on. A couple others from Steelers, Twitter on. So definitely go check them out.

But, you know, this tweet yesterday really, resonated with me. I agreed with him on it. He tweeted here, the good news is I don't think Rutherford will be here much longer, especially if they have another year where they're won and done in the playoffs or worse, if they miss them. I would have already let him go. I think the only thing keeping him is the pens not wanting to pay him, plus new GM during COVID. I mean,

it's honestly hard to argue with that. I also would have let him go already, especially after this series against Montreal. I know firing a GM during a pandemic is not the wisest thing, just because, you know, they don't want to pay him for so many years. He did bring them to Stanley Cups. I mean, it's hard enough to fire him for that anyway, but he's just not done a good job these last few years. And if you're really going

to bring in Dale Tallon when basically the entire Penguins fan base is telling you not to, there's just, there's a big problem there. And I really hope ownership steps in at some point and does let Rutherford go. I don't know if they're going to fire him after this next season. I mean, Chad basically said, you know, if they're one and done, which that could worry what happened because the east is very strong this next season, I could definitely see it. But, you know, if they do go, they win around, maybe they lose in the second round, or if they go to the conference final and lose, I think they'll keep him around for another year.

Honestly, though, I mean, there's also the possibility that they may not even have the balls to fire him and they just want him to, you know, ride off into the sunset, wherever, whenever he just wants to retire, because, or just when he wants to resign, basically. But, you know, I know he's not going to be here when Sidney Crosman and McGee-Mall can get up to, like, 37, 38 years of age. He's not going to be here that much longer. If I had to guess guys, I'm thinking maybe only a season or two that he's going to be here, but, you know, that's just my hope at this point.

But I also wonder if they're maybe like scared to fire him and then bring in someone worse. But, I mean, how can you do worse than Jim Rutherford? I mean, yeah, you could bring in Pierre McGuire, who I really do want Pierre McGuire to be a GM of an national team someday just because of how bad of a job he would be. He obviously hates analytics. He probably would not bring in anyone who even looks at analytics.

So he would just be making moves out of his ass. We all know the Penguins interviewed him in the 2014 search. I think he was actually a finalist for that job. yeah if they do fire Jim Rutherford at some point I really hope they do not go bring back PM Require for another review you got to bring in someone young hell we talked about it on monday's episode sam vinger for gm every anyone that would be a hundred percent for that so yeah the moral of this segment is don't hire tell tallon hire someone who actually knows what he's doing and maybe can keep rutherford in check you know sam vinger can definitely do that now that he has promotion or you

know bring back jason botryl because i do think he can help keep rutherford in check i mean it looked like he did you know he was the cap wizard um for all those years under him as associate you yet. All right, guys, welcome back to this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. So it goes to we of an official start date for the AHL season. Elliot Friedman tweeted our report that he was hearing who was going to be in early February at the HL released an announcement, not like 10, 15 minutes later, confirming that their targeted start date is February 5th of next year, gives them time to get a schedule together.

You know, we got to see what's going to happen with the borders and all that. They can get everything together and really see if they are going to have a season that starts on their targeted date. If I had to guess, I think the NHL is probably going to go this route as well. I know they wanted to start on January 1st. It would have been awesome to start with Winter Classic. Obviously, they had to be postponed. But, you know, I did watch an insider training that they wanted.

They were targeting like a cool, unique place to start the season. I mean, I don't really know where they want to go to start the season. You're not going to have a lot of fans for that place. I mean, you're looking at the NFL right now. I mean, there's not even half the stadiums are not even full. So it's hard to believe you're going to have. even half fan attendance if you start the season in January. So I definitely think they're going to follow what the AHL is doing and start the season around,

you know, right after the Super Bowl. And you know, you can do like a 50, 60 game regular season. Go do the playoffs. You can end them maybe in early July. You know the Olympics are next year. You don't want to interfere with them because NBC has the rights to them. You can end the playoffs. Like I said, early July, like July 5th, closer maybe July 10th at the latest.

And then the Olympics can come in two weeks later. And then you're set. And then you can have a full 82. game season after that, but that's also hoping that the world is in a better place then than it is now. And while we're on the topic of next season for the NHL, I'm just curious to see what they come up with. I mean, there's been a bunch of rumors. I think Pierre LeBron and Darren Berger talked about inside our training last night. Is there going to be a Canadian division realignment? Just put all the seven Canadian teams in one division and just have them

play each other. That could happen because the Canadian border is still not open. I don't think to any U.S. resident, if I'm not mistaken. So if that's not lifted, by January of February, which is when the NHL wants to start their season, I mean, you can be looking at only the United States teams playing each other, and then the Canadian teams, like I said, just in one division. If I had a guess

as well, I think you're going to see a lot of back-to-back to back next season. I know they're going to try to get as many games in as possible. They've said for a while, yeah, we want to get 82 games. Like, that's the goal, but it's like, you're not going to get 882 games. I mean, we saw what happened with baseball this season because they were just having all kinds of trouble

negotiating a season. They can only play 60 games and I mean they were still were able to hand out the World Series the Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series of the Tampa Bay raised last night. Chalk that up as an L for me I picked the raise in seven games so I just continue to take L after L in this year but anyways back to my

original point there's just no way they get a full A2 game season and because what are you going to play well into July I mean we've already talked about how the Olympics are slated for next year NBC has the rights to air the Summer Olympics and they're definitely not going to want to show the NHL on their station as well so

I mean, they need to have a season finish in early July at the latest, but prefer by mid-June, which is normally when the season ends anyway in a regular year. But, you know, for the Penguins, I would expect a lot of division games next year. I think even in a short and schedule, they're probably going to really stack them with division games. I mean, you probably won't be playing a team like Toronto that much, Montreal. I mean, you may not be playing them at all if it's just a Canadian division with all those seven of those teams. But, you know, I would expect a lot of games against Washington, Philadelphia, Columbia, Columbus, New Jersey, all the teams in the Metropolitan Division.

And then, of course, some games against Tampa Bay, Boston, Buffalo. I mean, you probably get a California road trip. But, you know, sometimes those California road trips are so spread out that the team is there for like almost a week or something. But I would expect at this point for next year, it would probably only be for like four days. They may do like three games and four nights or something like that and then get the team the hell out of there. I don't really think they're going to be doing a bubble again. I read that piece from Greg Wajinsky and Emily Kaplan of ESPN.com. They interviewed several players anonymously about the bubble conditions.

And yeah, it looked like they do not want to go back to that. So it's probably going to be what baseball did. There's not going to be many fans in the arena. I would expect some fans to be there, but it's not going to be that many. I'm daily testing still, I'm sure. And I would definitely probably expect a lot of postponements next season. I mean, we're already seeing it still with the NFL. Me, the NFL has gotten better with it, you know, those last couple of weeks.

were rough for them, but, you know, this past week was good. This week looks like is coming up is good. You know, we're going to hope for the best with them. But, you know, we knew the NFL was going to get hit with a wave of postponements. The same is going to happen with the NHL. The same actually happened with baseball at the start of their season and everyone was clamoring for them to shut down, which, you know, I would have 100% understood, but, you know, they were able to push through it and they still awarded the World Series, even when Justin Turner made an idiot out of himself and decided to play game six after testing positive for the coronavirus. And then, oh yeah, after he was instructed to come out of the game, after they won the World Series,

he came back on to the field with a mask and touched the trophy. So he probably just gave his whole teammates the coronavirus. But still, I'm excited to see what the league comes up with here. I mean, there still hasn't been any talk of like a schedule for a January 1st restart. And by schedule, I mean, you know, a schedule for each individual team. So we're going to have to see when that happens. But still, you know, good news on the HL. They're going to hopefully start February 5th.

It's a long way from now. They got a lot of stuff to iron out. But, you know, I would look for a similar announcement from the NHL pretty soon because I really don't know if a January 1st restart is ceasible at this point, especially with, you know, the coronavirus just continuing to surge in places all over this country. So who knows what's going to happen at this point. But before we do get to our next segment of this episode, it is time to talk about Bill Bar. It's a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. There's six new flavors, caramel brownie, cookies and cream, lemon, almond cheesecake are a few. 12 original flavors, mint brownie, banana bread, salty caramel, double chile.

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senators on a one-year deal. I think it's like $1.5 million just for that season. Honestly, that's not a bad deal for Gau Chenyuk. I mean, he has a chance to up his value. He's been really bad these last couple of seasons. I mean, we obviously saw just how bad he was here with the Penguins when they tried putting him on a Gennie Malkins line and he just couldn't score to save his life. was just awful in the defensive zone as well.

Got traded in Minnesota. He was better there because there was not really as high as expectations in Minnesota, but went to market and then he takes a nice little cheap deal to go to these senators who are not going to be a good team. They're probably not going to be a good team for still three to four more years now. And if he has a decent enough season, maybe Potts 10 to 15 goals, Ottawa will trade him to a team for like, what, a third, fourth round pick or something like that. Hell, if he has a 15 to 20 goals season, he can maybe get a second round pick,

in return. So it's a nice buy low, I think, for Ottawa, and like I said, you can just trade him at the deadline if he plays well. And they can probably put him anywhere in the lineup, but for right now, I would guess you can probably put him with Dadanov, Kachuk, maybe with Colin White. I mean, who knows.

But still, I think that's a good landing spot for Chucky. And there really wasn't much other news to come out today for the H.L. Like, we are just in the dog days of the HL off season. It's going to continue until we get news about the next It's probably going to continue well into December, honestly. You're probably not going to see many trades.

You know, the cap is still very flat. Teams just don't want to spend a lot of money. And can you blame? I mean, we saw if Mike Hoffman is out there as a free agent. I love that the Penguins were able to get him, even though his wife is a pretty shitty human being. If you don't know the story behind that, just look up what basically what she did to Eric Carlson's wife.

It's pretty bad. But he's a hell of a goal score. But, you know, he has not been signed yet. I think there's been rumors that Nashville's interested. had 29 goals this last season, 59 points and 69 games. Very nice number. Mikhail Gremlin is still out there, had a 17-goal 30-point campaign

in 63 games. He would have been a nice option to get at center. I would have given him the third-line center spot over Mark Jankowski, but I mean, I guess they're just going to give it to Jankowski and move McHan to wing, which I don't agree with at all. I mean, I think Sammy Vattenen is still out there. Carl Soderberg, I mean, he had a good year,

17 goals, 35 points, but he's now 34 years old. I really don't think he can replicate what he did. That would not be a good option for the Penguins if they still had a bunch of of Capspace. But even with the cap space that they do have, I would not sign him. Somehow, Carl Alzner is out there. Michael Fro leak, you know, six goals, 14 points last season. And then, you know, after that, options are pretty bleak. Travis Hamannick, Ron Hainesie, Michael Grabb. I'm really sure what's going on there. Connor Sherry, of course, is still out there. Eric Hala. You know, there's been a lot of Penguins fans that wanted Hala to be the Penguins third line center. Honestly,

guys, I would have given it over. I would have given it to Granlin or Craig Smith. I really don't think Hala is that good of a player. Yeah, I know he had 12 goals, 24 points last year, his possessions. All right, but he's also battled a bunch of injuries throughout his career, so I just wouldn't trust him to stay healthy, I don't think, in Pittsburgh. Even though he would probably take a one-year proof-it deal, as a lot of other players have this off-season, I don't think I would be too interested in Eric Hala.

After that, guys, there are just, there's not a lot of people out here. I mean, Corey Perry is on here, but, you know, I don't really like Corey Perry. Anthony Duclair, you know, former 20 goals score this past season. You know, his numbers, they went down a bit in the second half of the season, but he's a good player. He's still 24. Some teams should have honing up by now and paid him. But, you know, like I said, that flat cap is just really not letting a lot of teams spend money. I would love if the Penguins were able to somehow steal Duclair, but, you know, with the little cap space they have, it's just not going to happy.

He's going to go to a team that actually has cap to spend. Let's just going down the list here I mean, yeah, Derek Brassard old friend, he's still not been signed back by the Islanders, Ryan Miller, Brett Richie, I just forgot Brian Boyle is out there on the UFA list. Dominic Cahoon. This was a

31 point player this past season in 56 games. I have no idea how he has not been signed, but, you know, I'm sure he's going to go to a contending team and you know, he can play on the third line role and he can chip in 10 to 15 goals a season and that's what you want out of your bottom six forwards. He's also good on the penalty kill,

good defensively, good playmaker. He's everything you want in a bottom six-sport. I would have loved if the penguins were able to bring him back and not someone like Evan Rodriguez or Mark Jankalsky. I would have actually preferred Cahoon over both of those guys. But I think that does it for this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. We'll have another episode coming tomorrow on Thursday and then on Friday. And then, guys, it will be three episodes a week for all of November

and probably December as well. So I just wanted to let you guys know about that. If there's any Penguins news that come this week, we'll be sure to talk about it on this podcast. But, you know, I have a lot of cool off-season stuff coming for you guys. So stay tuned for that. I hope you all have a great day, and I will talk to you all tomorrow.