Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - The Penguins have made another STRONG front office hire!

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

It's about to be a wild week, my friends. Hunter starts the show with some Penguins front office news as the Penguins have hired Vukie Mpofu to be their Director of Hockey Operations and Legal Affairs. Hunter dives into what he did during his time in Los Angeles and Vegas before detailing what his role will be with the Penguins. He then looks at how Mpofu's fingerprints are all over LA's salary cap situation since they hardly have any actual bad deals. Hunter also stresses that the Penguins have failed to properly replace Jason Botterill since he left, so this could be the hire that finally does that. He then analyzes why Dubas is building a younger front office before wondering what this means for Brandon Pridham since he has similar duties. After that, Hunter gives his picks for the NHL Awards, which will take place on Monday night before ending the show with some trade season talk. He even gives a bold prediction as to what Dubas' first trade will be during that segment and whether it will come this week.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!AG1If a comprehensive solution is what you need from your supplement routine, then try AG1 and get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D AND 5 free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase. Go to drinkAG1.com/NHLNETWORK.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNHL for $20 off your first purchase.eBay MotorsFor fit parts, head to eBay Motors and look for the green check. Stay in the game with eBay Guaranteed Fit. eBay Motors dot com. Let’s ride. eBay Guaranteed Fit is only available to US customers. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go to FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as non-withdrawable free bets that expire 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) 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.

Well, it's official the Pittsburgh Penguins have made their second front office hire under Kyle Dubus. And I'm going to go into why this is a very good move for the team right out for this. You're locked on penguins. Your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Your team every day. Hello, welcome back to another episode of the Locked On Penguins podcast. I am your host, Hunter Hodes.

and follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, follow the shows Twitter at Illinois for Penguins. And of course, thank you all so much for making this your first listen slash watch of the day. We are free and available on all platforms. Happy Monday to you all, and this is going to be a very hectic week around the NHL you have. The draft coming up in the next two, three days,

free agency right after. And on top of those two things, it is traeases, and the penguins are going to be involved in all three, at least some capacity. That's why you've got to keep it right here on Locked on Penguins for everything. relating to the team. But before we get into all that craziness

and my picks for the Anshal awards tonight, we do have to discuss a hire the Penguins announced on Monday morning, and that is Vuki Mapofu as director of hockey operations and legal affairs. He comes to the Penguins after spending the previous two seasons with Los Angeles Kings

as their manager of hockey operations in legal affairs. So he'll basically have the same role, but it's a quote unquote promotion since he's now the director of hockey operations. With the Kings, he assisted with player contract negotiations and helped manage their salary cap. Before that, he worked as an intern for the Vegas Golden Knights and was part of their hockey legal affairs department with the Penguins.

Again, he will be assisting with player contract negotiations and certain compliance with the CBA and salary cap. And he'll take an active role leading the Penguins hockey research and development department. This move, number one, shows the Penguins are going with a very young and a very progressive front office. Mapofu is only 27 years old. I'm going to throw myself under the bus here a little bit. The fact that I'm 25 and I'm only two years younger than him shows that I am getting old here, my friends. But this is a front office. You're not really going to see many dinosaurs working under Dubus.

I think the penguins want to get back to the front office that they had under Jim Rutherford, where they had a bunch of young, a bunch of up-and-coming people and hockey operations leadership that could eventually get GM jobs one day. Remember when under Rutherford, the penguins had the likes of Tom Fitzgerald, Jason Botterill, Billy Garon, and Jason Carmonos, they were all on the same staff. They did different things, but they were all on the same staff. Look where they are now. Jason Bauderil was a GM in Buffalo. He's now in Seattle.

Billy Garon, GM of the Minnesota Wild. Tom Fitzgerald, GM of the New Jersey Devils. Carmanos is in Buffalo as assistant general manager. that front office was awesome and I think the penguins are trying to get back to having a similar front office like that and the penguins they haven't really had a salary cap wizard since jason botterill left to be the GM in buffalo that that's how long it's been Alex shawl was the guy under hextall but he didn't really do that good of a job because the penguins always bungled the salary cap under hextall

So the fact that they're hiring someone who knows what they're doing when it comes to the cap, based off his work in Los Angeles, is a big deal. Even if the penguins have $20 million in cap space, and I believe it's thundering outside. We're about to get a massive thunderstorm here in Pittsburgh. But just look at his work with the Kings. His fingerprints are all over it. Outside of Drew Doughty and Aumse Copatar,

the Kings don't really have too many insane contracts I'll even go a step further I don't really think they have many quote unquote bad contracts on their cap friendly Dowdy and Copaatar you have Kevin Fiala who signed in a reasonable

rate 7.875 million excuse me for the next several years you have Philip Dono who signed for the next four years at 5.5 Kempay same cap hit but for three Arvinson a little over four Trevor Moore, five years, $4.2.2 million. Alex I follow, four years.

Then you have a bunch of cheap RFAs. You have Gavrakow, short-term, big cap hit. Mikey Anderson, 24, but signed for the next six, seven seasons at $4.125 million. And then Phoenix Copley, $1.5 million to be their backup goalie. They don't really have any horrendous deals. And that's why they have $9 million in cap space to play with right now. And they're taking you one up here, look, Dubois. Mapofu is in a really nice job with the Kings and their salary cap situation.

When you're coming over from Rob Blake, you know you do a good job because Blake has a really good front office around. And ever since he took that job in Los Angeles, he has built a really nice hockey operations leadership. And it's been rare when you see the Kings mess up under his leadership. So I'm a big fan of this hire. And again, even though the. penguins have upwards of 20 million in cap space, there are still some deals that you can easily argue the thing that need to be moved, like a Michael Granlan, like a Jeff Petrie, like a Yarnuta, and someone like Mapofu can help you out in that regard and help the penguins get more

cap space so maybe they can land an even better player or two in a trade in free agency, maybe even after this year at next year's trade deadline, at next year's draft infre agency, because he'll be here, I think, for the long haul. This is a great asset to have in hockey operations. And again, he's only 27. He's going to have plenty of room to grow, especially if Dubas stays for the long haul. So I am all for a front office, getting younger, getting more progressive,

and especially hiring someone who can really manage the cap to make sure that the penguins don't bungle it nearly as badly as they did when Ron Hextall was the general manager. Another thought that came to my mind when this hire was announced, what is this mean for Brandon Priddle? Because when you look at his duties under Dubison, what he's going to be doing under Brad Trayleving, they're basically the same.

He was Dubis's right-hand man and worked exclusively with the salary cap. Does that take him out of the running for the GM job? Personally, my opinion, I think they're either going to go with a quote-unquote data guy to be the GM or it's just going to be dubus running the show himself and they're not going to be hiring a GM. I honestly think this takes him out of the running for Pritam because if you were to hire him and make him GM, it would just be redundant because he basically does what Mapofu does. So I personally don't think they're going to go after Pridum

now. I still want to be surprised, but I think again his hiring would just be a little redundant. I think if they do hire GM, you're just going to see a quote unquote, you know, hockey math guy, just an analytics guy as the GM. So that's where my thought went when it came to what was going on with the next hire. But I really like the front office at Dubus is building right now. And I'm curious to see what else he does with this front office and who else he brings in. So that'll do it for this first segment of the Locktown Penguins podcast. Coming up in the second segment, we're going to get into my picks for the NHL Awards. That's coming up on Monday night. We televised by TNT. And then later on in the show,

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All right. We're back in this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I am your host, Hunter Hodes, and to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the shows Twitter at Eleanorst or Penguins. And, of course, thank you all so much for making this your first list and slash watch of the day. We are free and available on all platforms. So let's get into my picks for the Anshall Award ceremony, which will take place from Nashville on Monday night. Starting with Connor McDavid, 64 goals, 153 points. He is my easy pick for the Hart Trophy. It's him and there's everyone else.

He put up numbers that we haven't seen in quite some time. He's the best player in the world. It's not close. When you take McDavid off the Oilers, they're not even a playoff team. I don't care what you're going to say about Leon Drys Idol. I know he's great. Same thing with Ryan New Jersey.

Hopkins, no offense people, they are not, and they will never be Connor freaking McDavid. McDavid should win this unanimously, in my opinion. After that, we have the Norris. I'm going to go with Eric Carlson, though you can easily make a great case for Kelmacar despite him missing time in Adam Fox, who was awesome again. And I understand Carlson stinks defensively, and defense has to be taken into account when it comes to this award. It can't just all be offense.

That said, I think there are exceptions to that because Carlson was awesome this season on a garbage, and I mean an absolute garbage shark's team. 25 goals and 101 points on a lottery team. Come on, man. He was perhaps the biggest reason why Sharks fans even bothered to watch the team this season. They were horrible,

but because he was in pursuit of 100 points, Fans tuned in. He was that good for someone who is 33 years old. And he can give you a ton of offense for someone at that age. He was awesome. I would give him the Norris if I had a vote. Moving on a little bit down the list, the Vesna. This one's tough, but because it's a regular season award,

I'm going to go with Linus Allmark. Yes, people, I understand the Bruins. lane down in seven games. They blew a 3-1 seriously. We can go through all the memes. It's funny. I know. But Allmark was incredible.

9.30, 8, 8% percentage. Second goals hate above expected with 42 just behind UC Soros. One of the biggest reasons why the Bruins set the all-time wins record during the regular season. Without him, that's a completely different team. And yes,

you can easily make an argument for Sorokin, win this because without him, the islanders may not even make the playoffs over the penguins or the Panthers, well, over the penguins, I should say. And you can easily say the same for Hellobook because they falter down the stretch and he was the only reason why that scene continuing to win games at times. He is awesome, but I am giving it to Allmark if I had a vote. The Calder, Maddie Baneers, 57 points this past season, 46 of those at 5 on 5. He really showed why he was one of the best young players in the NHL this past season and why there was a lot of hype about him coming into the season.

He can do it all for you. He can score. He has elite vision. He can play defensively. He can play on the power play. He was one of the biggest reasons why the Cracken took a huge step forward this season. And I'm really curious to see how his development continues to progress as the years go by. But he should win the Coulter, in my opinion.

Jack Adams, it's probably going to go to Jim Montgomery. But honestly, friends, I would not give it to him. I would give it to Dave Haxdoll. And I say that because who had the Cracken doing as well as they did this past season? I personally thought they weren't really going to be that good. And they go out, they make the playoffs, they went around in the playoffs, they beat the defending champions, and they get within a game of going to the Western Conference Final and beating the Dallas Stars. They exceeded all expectations this past season.

It's obvious that he has learned from his failures in Philadelphia, and he has transformed himself, excuse me, into one of the better coaches and the angel. I can't even believe I'm saying that to you all. Because I was very against the hire when Ron Francis initially announced it before the crackdown and even played a game. He didn't have a good first year there. but he took those failures and the ones during his time in Philly.

And he just said, you know what, the hell with those. I'm going to make myself a better coach. And he did just that. Plenty of players had great years under him, including Baneers. He had McCann, who was awesome. Vince Dunn was one of the best defensemen in the league. Gru Bauer was awesome under him in the playoffs. Tanev was good yet again.

Bjork Strand was awesome. This is a fun team on the rise. And I am really curious to see what he can do with the next season. I would have Paxtall winning this award over everyone else. The Selke, it's Patrice Bergeron to me, and it's everyone else. Usually when he is nominated, everyone else is a guest. And for good reason, Patrice Bergeron is the best two-way forward the NHL has to offer. And honestly, my friends, it's not close.

He can win your faceoffs. He can score. He can pass, he can play elite defense in his own zone, and oh yeah, he can kill you at penalties. And he can do all those things at an elite level despite being in his late 30s. Anytime he is up for this award, he always gets my vote. Until he starts actually going down the drain and becomes quote-unquote washed, I will vote for him to win this. This is his award.

I think he should and will win it. GM of the year, give me Bill Zito. It takes a lot of guts to do that kind of trade last summer with trading out Huberto and we grew for Kachuk, but wow, Kachuk gave you all that value and then some during the regular season in the playoffs. He also didn't make any panic moves when he could have at the trade deadline when the Panthers were kind of out of the playoff hunt. He said, you know what?

I'm going to bet on these guys. And they sure made him feel proud when they got to within three games. of winning their first Stanley Cup. He's also looking really good right now with the Paul Maurice hire. I'll say that. I was not a big fan of it at the time. It took a lot of balls

to fire a coach like Andrew Brunette who helped Panthers average 3.5 to 4 goals per game to go to Paul Maurice who is kind of the exact opposite of a coach as Brannette is. But he is reaping the rewards right now. Curious to see if that continues next season because sometimes some of these coaches

they have success early, then they bought him out. But I think Zito's in a really solid job since becoming the Panthers GM. He's a patient guy to work out big trades, got the head coaching higher right. I'm interested to see what he does this summer because I think the Panthers could use another defense winner two with some of the players that they have hurt to start this upcoming season. The Lady Bing, give me Jack Hughes. He didn't even have 10 penalty minutes this season. He's very classy on and off the ice had over 90 points.

You can also make an argument for Joe Pavelski because he is as classy as they come. He continues to age like fine wine, 77 points, 82 games this past season. But if they're up to me, I would go Jack Hughes when it comes to that. The King Clancy, I'm going to go with Michael Backlind. And Anders Lee and Darno and Urs are also very deserving, but I'm going to go with Backland on that one. McDavid will obviously win the Art Ross in the Rocket. The Jennings Trophy will go to Swayman and Allmark.

and the Masterton saving the best for last it's Chris LaTang He should win this I know he was snubbed the last time But his dad passed away He suffered his second stroke Battle numerous more injuries

Came back and played at an elite level Again It's Lettang for me And it's everyone else Yeah I know I'm a little bit biased Doing a Penguins podcast But Latang should win this award And he would have my vote

if they were up to me. But those are my thoughts and my picks for the NHL wars that will take place later on on Monday. Let me know who you think will win each award down to YouTube comments. You can also send me a DM and all that good stuff as well. But coming up to end the show, trade season is officially here. And one of my favorite penguin targets is officially off the board that's coming up right after this. All right. I'm back in this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast.

I am your host, Hunter Hodes. I'm going to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the shows Twitter, Eleanor Henguins, and of course, thank you all so much for making this. Your first listen to slots, watch of the day. We are free and available on all platforms. So we did see a trade today, and the Bruins, they did do a cap dump, but it wasn't to the Penguins.

No, they sent Taylor Hall and their rights to UFA Nick Felino to Chicago as the Bruins were clearing 6 million in salary cap space, and I think they're going to be taking a run at Tyler Bertuzi, so he could be coming off the market in the next few days. I may really want to resign him. But Hall, he'll be getting into play with Connor McDard. It doesn't look like he was on, or the Blackhawks. The Blackhawks were not on his 16 team, no trade list,

which is interesting to say the ways. I thought they would be one of the first teams on there. But I guess maybe he updated it after the Bedard sweepstakes happened. I don't know, but he'll be playing playing there with Bard. I would have loved to see him play with Hvgeny Malkin or Cindy Crosby. He's a great playmaker. He can score goals. You can put him on the power play, but it's not meant to be.

But overall, you're going to see a lot of trade action this week. And I do think the penguins are going to be involved in that. I will say this. I think you will see them make a trade for a goalie this week. That's going to be the first move that Debus makes. I'll even go out on a limb and predict that it's going to be Vamalka. I'll go out and predict that. It's a bold prediction, I know, maybe a little bit,

but I think that's what you're going to see happen this week before Tristan Jari becomes an unrestrictive free agent on Saturday, July 1st. But there's a lot of chatter around the league right now. You have pure luck Dubois and the Kings. If that finalizes, I would still look to them for Victor Arvinson. That makes a lot of sense for the Penguins, someone who can score your goals, can produce a lot of points for you, put them on your second power play, cheap enough cap hit a little only

4.2 million for this upcoming season that's fine Connor Garland is someone out there who I know the Canucks are trying to get rid of super badly but there's a lot of chatter out there and the reason teams like this they don't really like the free agency class and they like

to do their business via trades take a look at the free agent class people it's not good it's not good at all. So it's no wonder that you're seeing a lot of trades. And again, I do think Dubus is going to make his presence known at the draft this week when it comes to a goalie.

Because I don't think Tristan's going to come back. I think of the three unrestricted free agents that the Penguins have, the big ones, you know, him, Dumlin and Zucker, he's the most likely to come back, but it's still not high. I think all three of them are going to walk. In terms of a Zucker replacement, if he goes, obviously it's not going to be Taylor Hall. Who are you going to target?

Michael Buntingian, free agency. I like him, but I'm wondering if a team is going to go, you know, five times five, five times five point five for him. I think you're better off acquiring someone via trade. And maybe that someone is a Garland. Maybe that someone is a Victor Arvinson. Maybe it's someone like a, I don't know, is Troy Terry from the dog.

available. He was awesome for the Ducks this past season. It has been for the past couple of seasons. Yeah, they could easily build around him and Trevor Zeevers and Mason McTavish and whoever they pick in the top. Whether that's Leo Carlson, whether it's Van Tilly, I personally think it's going to be fan Tilly. Maybe they go off the board and take Mischkov. I don't know if he would want to go to the Ducks. That's the thing. But maybe Troy Terry is available. I would love for the penguins to get their hands on him. He has been very underrated throughout his career, can play in your top six,

has a beautiful shot, reasonable cap hit. Sign me up for that any day of the week. But it won't be Taylor Hall that will be replacing Zokrit of Sokker Walks, so that will have to be someone else or maybe they think someone in-house can do that. But in my opinion, my friends, I don't like the Penguins have anyone in house.

that going to play soccer. They will have to qualify the organization to replace it. But it's going to get fun. It's going to get wild. This is going to be great. Keep it right here on Locked on Penguins for everything relating to the Penguins when it comes to trade season in the draft and free agency. There's going to be a lot of content coming to the show this week. I have my big board dropping tomorrow for the show before we do a little smaller draft preview for Wednesday.

I'll probably have a reaction to the Penguins making their pick on Wednesday, but my full draft war will drop on the show on Tuesday. So that will do it for this one. Thank you all so much for listening to this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I very much appreciate it. I'll be back with another episode for you all on Tuesday. Then we'll have episodes Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. And I'll have a special bonus episode for you all on Saturday going over the Penguins' free agent signings or potential trades.

thoughts on those and also getting into what Kyle Dubas had to say because usually all the GM slash president of hockey operations, they speak late in the afternoon on Saturday when the business has wrapped up. But again, thank you all so much for tuning in. Very appreciated. I'll be back with another episode for you all on Tuesday.